(1) TRAWLER
The true net is widest,
strong-knotted,
stays most open,
catches nothing,
lets in,
lets waves be,
lets the pull be
that fills it in going.
Don’t untie a knot,
don’t dissolve a single eye
till the fin that found it opening
is shining, clearly caught,
fisher and fish a single freight,
one faring.
(2) FOCUS
See how the treetops
bend, seek shelter,
throng around the empty like a hearth,
leave the wind outside,
leave a window at the top,
an open,
eye to let the light be there
and how above to skyward
clouds too seek shelter,
throng around the empty like an eye,
open to the earth they circle.
And where the two,
the eyes are,
there we stand,
we that see the branches,
name the sky,
join the never-shutting circle
holding earth and light together
in a moment’s open,
sheltering the open from the wind.
(3) TRANSLATOR’S HINDSIGHT
The names we spoke were never true,
we who never knew where surf would end
and song begin,
scrying always, signing always
under what was there,
coming late to scavenge shells
of what would never feed us,
seeing ever just ahead,
waiting where our feet would follow:
fallen grains, seeds of storm
that seemed to go together,
fall together into shadow shape,
with us in their silence,
speaking only so.
We take away,
gather home
what fell beyond the finding,
whispered out of mind,
called, still
calls for a word
where the wind around us
– all we had to breathe –
roared without reason,
shrieked out unspoken,
broke trees untold.
We heard,
still hear
an after,
a nearer:
hear, never know.
--Lloyd Haft
