The Night of the Little Fish

A friend told me a life ago That once he ventured to a beach In watery velvet moonlit night To cast a line in faith to reap The free- est bounty of the deep The night ran dark and icy still Clouds like heavy curtains moved The darkest hours to flight A surf- suck churning of the tide Through shifting pebbles clicked and moaned Was all there was of noise I watched his eyes grow wide As he told me of that night Magically the surf became alive With little fish, all silvered hued Like shards of newly furnaced steel All along the spumy shore A million fishes could he see And transfixed became and viewed The wonder of the awesome sight Glittering shiny in the ebb tide flow The moment was surreal, but full of wonder The wonder on a higher plane Was how these little fish so frail Can face the fury of the sea On such a driven course And yet survive and grow A moral for us all is here That scraps of life as frail as these That do no wrong can rise above adversity And be immortal, almost heavenly And so must we We are all little fish I asked my friend that if perhaps He’d fallen in some little slumber And dreamed the dream of fishermen Of fish seen as thick as grass He said the little darlings on that shore were real And will stay with me forevermore.