Las Poemas Del Viejo Poem by Robin D McCutcheon

(The old mans poems)
His poems are like the silver sides of fishes.
They flash and are gone.

Each separate line is a seine net, harvesting memories,
sorrows, ecstasy, pain, and wonder.
How those words suffer upon the page
before they stop flopping and lie still,
waiting for those few who will know them.

His sad old eyes are only sharp in the mirror now.
They only look inward. They seek only him.
They search for him deep inside the past,
beyond those decisions that created him,
those forks taken that shaped his bittersweet reality.

He sees the highlights of his life floating,
bobbing like flotsam upon the tepid sea of his failures.
He sighs so deeply that it seems like the air is leaving the earth.
The water is leaving the sea, drowning all the fishes.

He is alone. He is a ghost ship on the Saragossa Sea.
He thinks of the fish below him that look like the seaweed.
He is turning into seaweed.

He could do worse.
Seaweed has hope. But no. He has hope too. He must.
He is still alive and life is hope.

He remembers his evening prayer.
The same prayer he has prayed from his deep
and shallow heart for so many years.
He says thank you Dear God for all of these blessings
which I have done little to deserve.
Thank you for this worldly experience.
Such a beautiful planet you have put me on.
Thank you for your grace.
Please remember me.
Remember my shining flashes. Please forgive the rest.

He knows he can go when his time comes.
He has seen the wonderful planet, and he has seen the sea.

The dark is so near.
He has heard that there would be light.