The Difficulties of Holding All Together in the Mind
fishing, late, the heavy wound weight of the net drops quickly down from the long, black boon and spreads, thickly, across a surface:
water, tensely held to itself, rolling eagerly in a way that is bound, binding; as ropes break it, are swallowed, darken beneath the surface; as a gear clacks loud, close, letting more loosed rope out and down.
jolting, the boat moves forward as a second rumble from aft stretches further backwards until taut and holds --- engines pull an equal weight behind us, unseen, soon in black-green water, ballooned in opposite motion.
motors stop in a suitable time, wenches tighten engage dredge pull on the draws of the purse-seine as it brings up the first flashing, clapping grays.
loads change in sudden fashion, the water-weight rushing in thick columns out, the stunned and gasping fish, a moment ago weightless, piling in thick mass as the net is lifted up from the ocean, long strands of kelp dangling limply as water channels their lengths and runs steadily down.
with a deep movement, the deck rocks backward in relief, the sea no longer its responsibility.
watching, with a gloved hand I pull hard against the cold, metal handle of the hold-latch and listen: to the echoing patter of water falling from cord, from knot, from crushed bodies, from open mouths and down to the grease-slick floor.
with another motion the net opens and there is a singular sound,
____________________before the lapping of waves resumes against the bow.
5 comments:
I really like the pace of this one--I may have told you this--but the way it rushes toward the water coming out of the net and then that first person intrusion jolts.
Five more, you say?
I guess it's six, since the last on I did wasn't on the original list. Unless there's one that hasn't been linked in "THE LISTING."
I love this so far. I need to read it again a couple of times.
I do have this picture in my mind of a wench in a black robe hoisting that line. "Ah, the little wench."
I was waiting for some Biblical analogy. Some overflow of bounty, but I suppose, that subtly it is already there. Do you know fishing and boats? This feels too knowledgable to be from an armchair fisherperson.
OK. My first couple reads centered on all of the words of the analogy without reference to the title that defines what the analogy is all about.
Then, having revisited it with the "point" in mind, I was totally wowed by the fit of it all. The task of the mind feels so utterly the weight of that pull of things so terribly beyond possibility of containing.
And yet in all the straining and "seining" we do end up catching some things. Not always a miraculous haul, but sometimes just enough for dinner on the beach.
I love this!
I like this one. I like your descriptions of the fish on the floor of the boat. It stays with you.
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