Sardines

Through the water they glide, an immense mosaic of millions of silvery fish on their migratory run, obeying a call immemorial, a mystery of aquatic unison choreographed by instinct primordial. They billow, a grainy smoke cloud in which light drowns. A ruffling, like an enormous bedspread being shaken out in slow motion by an invisible giant. They turn into a mesh, glistening, spinning around, tightening, a net woven with fish for catching water. They stretch, a submerged galaxy unspooling into a braided rope in a blue universe. They bank, and silver ripples across the shoal, a wheat field touched by a soaking breeze. Then they move on, flashing by, like underwater rain falling sideways. Before the predators get to them, my eyes are feasting.