Our sardine fishermen work at night in the dark of the moon;
daylight or moonlight
They could not tell where to spread the net, unable to see the
phosphorescence of the shoals of fish.
They work northward from Monterey, coasting Santa Cruz; off
New Year's Point or off Pigeon Point
The look-out man will see some lakes of milk-color light on the
sea's night-purple; he points and the helmsman
Turns the dark prow, the motorboat circles the gleaming shoal
and drifts out her seine-net. They close the circle
And purse the bottom of the net, then with great labor haul it in.
I cannot tell you
How beautiful the scene is, and a little terrible, then, when the
crowded fish
Know they are caught, and wildly beat from one wall to the
other of their closing destiny the phosphorescent
Water to a pool of flame, each beautiful slender body sheeted
with flame, like a live rocket
A comet's tail wake of clear yellow flame; while outside the
narrowing
Floats and cordage of the net great sea-lions come up to watch,
sighing in the dark; the vast walls of night
Stand erect to the stars.
Lately I was looking from a night mountain-top
On a wide city, the colored splendor, galaxies of light: how could
I help but recall the seine-net
Gathering the luminous fish? I cannot tell you how beautiful
the city appeared, and a little terrible.
I thought, We have geared the machines and locked all together
into interdependence; we have built the great cities; now
There is no escape. We have gathered vast populations incapable
of free survival, insulated
From the strong earth, each person in himself helpless, on all
dependent. The circle is closed, and the net
Is being hauled in. They hardly feel the cords drawing, yet they
shine already. The inevitable mass-disasters
Will not come in our time nor in our children's, but we and our
children
Must watch the net draw narrower, government take all powers
-or revolution, and the new government
Take more than all, add to kept bodies kept souls- or anarchy,
the mass-disasters.
These things are Progress;
Do you marvel our verse is troubled or frowning, while it keeps
its reason? Or it lets go, lets the mood flow
In the manner of the recent young men into mere hysteria, splin-
tered gleams, crackled laughter. But they are quite wrong.
There is no reason for amazement: surely one always knew that
cultures decay, and life's end is death.
-- Robinson Jeffers --
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I lived near the ocean in a fishing community, so when I saw your post I was immediately interested and I knew you would give it a good spin! I thought I commented, but sometimes my phone hates me on wordpress. I love the thoughts here. Great work
Unfortunately I didn’t write it…but you probably saw that by end…this guy Jeffers is a tough character to argue with…although I keep trying. Looking forward to getting to your recent poems.
Ugh! Well, one thing is for sure, we’ll find out what 2012 is going to bring soon enough.
I think, if we look around at the human landscape, we can see the net being drawn in. Perhaps in 2012 it will be drawn a little tighter.
Yes, death is the only certainty… everything else has an X factor to it, whether choices appear to exist or not… As for the Mayan 2012 thing, I read a cartoon where a cave man says: “It was just a mistake I made on the calendar. I didn’t know people would get so upset about it.” Makes me think. Thanks for the post, Brian.
Haha, I saw another one that said something like, “That’s all the room there is. Boy are the people in 2012 going to be pissed!”