Oct 6, 2014 Original Poetry
Out of Water and Out of Air
©October 6th, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
The fish sails,
Head half in, half out,
Floundering, diving,
Coming up again, diving
Neither in, nor out,
Neither here nor there.
Suffocating in air,
Drowning in water.
Tail lashing back and forth,
It sees the golden disk
Of sun from below,
Comes up eagerly
To drink in the light,
But gasps, as the rare
Air hits unaccustomed gills.
Writhing in terror
And ecstasy, before
It sinks back in,
Singing of the light.
And unformed lungs
Struggle to grow
In a body too light, too
Easily pierced by bait.
Surrounded by fish
Which flow easily, like song,
Through that twilit world,
At ease with body and fins
Unconscious and joyous
Twirling in sport,
Racing away in terror:
Prey chased by predators
Chased in their turn, it
Swims on and on, raises
Face to the light, sinks back in.
Is that all there is to this?
This constant striving
To no avail, for no purpose?
This struggle, this wriggle
Through murk, and to lurk
In dark spaces, with waving
Fronds that invite, but bite.
Is this all there is?
Don’t tell the fish
That struggle ennobles.
There is nothing noble in it,
Except in the minds
Of those who would weave words
To lead the blind.
Where is a world for a
Fish such as this?
Struggling at the confluence
Of air and earth and water,
It makes a bubble-dream.
Where is a world for a
A fish such as this?
It twists and leaps
And looks up skywards,
And dies, it dies, full
Of desire and pain.
And when it dies,
Will a new Creature emerge,
Straddling air and land and water,
Poised and cool,
Master of all it surveys?
Or will the creature
Look around, and yearn
And weep for something
We cannot yet see?
Neither land, nor sky
Nor water nor fire
Will quench its yearning.
And so, it goes.
While the air and sky,
And land and water,
Swirl darkly, promising
Nothing.
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Tags: #Fish, #Original Poetry by Vijaya Sundaram, #Striving, #Struggle, Evolution, not belonging, not in one's element