Poem by the Charles River

By Robin Blaser
It is their way to find the surface
when they die.
                      Fish feed on fish
and drop those beautiful bones
                                              to swim.
I see them stretch the water to their need
as I domesticate the separate air to be my
breath.
            These fish die easily.

I find my surface in the way they feed.
Their gathering hunger is a flash like death.
No agony
               as if
                      my mind had eaten death.

Copyright Credit: Robin Blaser, “Poem by the Charles River” from The Holy Forest: Collected Poems of Robin Blaser. Copyright © 2006 by Robin Blaser.  Reprinted by permission of University of California Press.
Source: The Holy Forest: Collected Poems of Robin Blaser (University of California Press, 2006)