The Old Fisherman Poem by Mohabeer Beeharry

Who says
That the sea has no emotion?

The old fisherman laughs,
For he knows better.
His life is a tissue
Tumultuously woven with threads of ripples and billows,
Rise and fall
Fall and rise.

At day break
When the first ray of the sun glimmers
Through screens of warm vagrant mist,
He stands on the shore,
Scanning the horizon once visible,
calm
And friendly,
A safe invitation.

Now old,
Limbs unreliable,
Eyes sunken, glazed like the waning moon
Face sallow and scrawny,
And scarred by the relentless rays of the midday sun,
He watched the sea,

Not the same,
Not his sea.
Now restless, threatening
Over-flooding, chafing
Unfriendly
Like an old friend turned hostile;

That had in one night of screeching anger
Shattered his boat,
A sad relic
Lying back up under the almond tree
Shelter for stray cats.

The sea has no religion
No colour
No hate nor love.
He knew it.
But he still wonders where has all that calmness gone