TALKING TO FISH

Agnes-Boulloche-Ainsi-Rats-Vivent-2009

TALKING TO FISH

They do not know what water is.

They think the world is dancing

Constantly.  Songs are ecstasy as they

Enter their bodies completely.  They do

Not need ears to hear them.

o

We seldom see them in trees,

But there they are, thousands of them,

Decorations of the Amazon jungle

In flood.  Leaves are the souls

Of fish, sculptures of fish

Never previously seen.  Here

In the high jungle they become gems,

Tales of the elders.  fish.

o

We used to walk along the edges of the smaller lakes in the summer.  The crappie and small perch would rise in the evening and jump at flies or gulp bugs that fell into the water.  They would make concentric circles on the surface of the water, soft splashes in the twilight.  It was a language.  We had no idea what the fish were saying but they were saying.  Maybe it was about the heat or the rain coming the next day or what they had seen beneath the surface.  All those years later without a word yet so much of blood and its salt, reeds and thin lines trolled through the water, the quiet that came from eyes that never close, from pressure on lateral lines, from talking on and on to fish.

They do not know what water is.

They think the world is dancing

Constantly.  Songs are ecstasy as they

Enter their bodies completely.  They do

Not need ears to hear them.

o

We seldom see them in trees,

But there they are, thousands of them,

Decorations of the Amazon jungle

In flood.  Leaves are the souls

Of fish, sculptures of fish

Never previously seen.  Here

In the high jungle they become gems,

Tales of the elders.  fish.

o

We used to walk along the edges of the smaller lakes in the summer.  The crappie and small perch would rise in the evening and jump at flies or gulp bugs that fell into the water.  They would make concentric circles on the surface of the water, soft splashes in the twilight.  It was a language.  We had no idea what the fish were saying but they were saying.  Maybe it was about the heat or the rain coming the next day or what they had seen beneath the surface.  All those years later without a word yet so much of blood and its salt, reeds and thin lines trolled through the water, the quiet that came from eyes that never close, from pressure on lateral lines, from talking on and on to fish.

o