Fish Eyes

I’m back with a poem, in which I ponder our blinkered existence. On that happy thought, away we go!

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Fish Eyes

I once crossed a frozen lake
at the Swedish border. Wind whistled over
the white lands; frost feathered the
mirror surface. My young eyes couldn’t glimpse
what was beneath; I only heard the ominous
groan of new ice under heavy steps;
wooden floorboards in a decrepit flat.
Perhaps that was why the fish slipped

past our notice, and we didn’t see
them freeze beneath our footsteps.
I’d like to think that their mouths
were agape with wondrous horror
as our thunderous feet shattered their
glass bowl. We paused as some kid –
not me – leapt up and down and

made their watery homes tremble.
Deep down in their fishy kingdom
fins flapped and tails wavered –
what was the answer to the question
they’ve never sought to ponder?
As our soles left the ice, a gunshot crack

resounded in their minds. They’d just
keep flipping back and forth –
till either they stopped flipping or their
glass dome fell to pieces; even as we crossed
the icy path and walked on
in the withered white lands above.

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Did you feel like you just read a bunch of indiscernible hogwash? 🙂 Well, it certainly feels like I just wrote a buttload of hog – oh, wait.

But anyway, tell me what you think! But truly, life is not as hopeless as what I make it out to be in the poem, though it is definitely fleeting and all things do come to an end. Here’s why.