The Fish

The sea was all green rocks and brown fish, The cockleshells could talk with the walls, The sun’s burning nest in the black sea-grass. The fish are swimming in the sunrise Like the wild geese, casting off trouble with The pleasure of quills discarded for salt, A crane posturing proudly above the tide.

Is this forlorn memory of history, The restless tide in destiny echoed, the Bodies rolling in, rising in, the night? Let it come, dream of beauty, wander the Waters, Save your meaning for me; my dark made For keeping.

Let me rise like a white fox, Fulfill every line of cause in destinies, The lit worlds waited around emerald forests. Now the fish swim silently.

• Derek Walcott