The Weak Fisherman
He was born with shaking hands
And shoulders bent from weather.
The harbour boys would laugh and spit,
“That lad won’t last forever.”
The ropes would burn his fragile palms,
The gulls would steal his bait,
And every tide that crossed his bow
Would leave him cursed by fate.
The old men mended nets with ease,
They read the stars above,
But he could scarcely hold a course
Or stomach storms enough.
The sea knew all his weaknesses.
It threw him to his knees.
The waves would slap his little craft
About like autumn leaves.
Many nights he drifted home
With empty hooks and pride,
Saltwater soaking through his clothes,
And darkness in his eyes.
Yet still he rose before the dawn
Though fear was in his chest,
For some men quit from weariness
And some can do no less.
Then came the day the grey sky broke
With iron wind and rain.
The water churned like living wrath,
The gulls screamed out his name.
His line went taut beneath the deep.
His little vessel reeled.
A thing immense moved through the dark
With raw and stubborn will.
At first he thought to cut the rope.
“No catch is worth this grave.”
For every wave that crashed aboard
Reminded him he was weak.
But in the pull beneath his hands
There stirred a different fear:
That all his life he’d drift ashore
And never persevere.
So though his arms were thin as reeds
And though his back near broke,
He wrapped the line around himself
And held against the stroke.
The fish dragged him through blackened swells
Till blood ran from his skin,
But every breath he gasped that day
Said Do not yield again.
The storm still mocked him merciless.
The sea still made him small.
But somewhere in that endless grey
He ceased to fear the squall.
And when at last the fish lay still
Beside the battered prow,
The harbour men could scarcely speak
To see him coming now.
For he had not returned made strong,
Nor fearless, hard, or grand.
The sea still towered over him.
The nets still cut his hands.
But there was something in his eyes
The tide had never known,
A man may still be weak and yet
Refuse to let it own him.
And some would say the fish he caught
Was only flesh and bone,
But others knew a heavier thing
Was carried safely home.