The Fisherman

People arrive by water, unspeaking ones
keeping close to the hulls of the anchored ships,
startling at the bump as they heave to.

                                                    Early summer breathes
soft and low, wafts the curtains, caresses
grass, lightly stirs the hair.
It's sunrise, it is the hour
when nets are lifted, the hour of tremulous light,
its hesitant, uncertain brightening
from house to house as it conjures voids
and visions that abscond - look -
over the trees and beyond the hedges.

A time suspended between what is hidden
and what stands open, when it seems
the real is not inside us, but in some oracle
or miracle about to reveal itself, a time
that dupes men - and any hope it inspires
can be hope only for a sign or wonder.

My mood detaches me, makes me strange
shades by the water's edge
and on the wet sand: I keep watching them
behind those spars and stunted poplar trees.

Forgive me, it is a mark of the human
to search out, as I do, what is close to us,
humble and real, in hidden places -
there and nowhere else. I crane my neck
to follow with anxious eyes the fisherman
who comes over to the breakwater and hauls
from the sea what the sea allows,
a few gifts from its never-ending turmoil.