A Little Sardine Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

A Little fish

I opened a tin of sardines in olive oil for my evening meal.
Headless and nicely packed they were except for one that
had a head on and was alive. I filled water in a glass jar put
the sardine in and fed it bread crumbs.
The headless sardines in the tin so still and dead I could
not eat them put the tin back in the fridge.
My little sardine grew too big for the jar cats were circling
the house looking for a way in, so I took it to the empty lake
that once had Bluegills fished to extinction,
set my sardine free to feed on rotten vegetation
I don`t know how fish reproduces, but a year later a school
of sardines were swimming around except for one that
swam the opposite way- Bonanza! Grilled sardines and
the people rejoiced thought it was going to last forever,
and then there were none except one my sardine in oil.
I went down to the lake when it saw me it was so glad
it jumped up in the air and was caught by a passing bird.
Empty lake a dead eye in the wilderness tells no story.