caspoetry, part 2

[metonomia]

6.20, obviously.  He has been trying for a long time to make two unlike things understand each other.

The thing about teaching poetry to
fish is that they are not poetic.
You swim with them through eons
of hydrologic cycles, new fish,
same water. You bring your best,
hosannas of the seventh sphere,
the symmetric whisper of wings,
the canticles of the sun and stars.
Water slicks language from you
and disappears it among fins and
scales, bright things that only
know the sun refracted, dark, brief.

You find the last swimming
descendant of that gray crawler.
It is mouthing a swarm of krill.
Still - they are family, and you
know the language of blood.
Surely this fish is for Keats -
but Keats is all wings and wine,
and your fish objects, mouth
agape in a contemptuous breath
of water. Hafiz, then. The dark midnight,
fearful waves, and the tempestuous
whirlpool. But this is a deep-dweller,
and no human has written poetry in the
un-light of the Mariana,
and you cannot make them
remember each other.