Trapped in and by circumstances that were a convolution of drag-nets,

That impaled what was once like a free ocean-enjoying whale.

Life, plus or minus karma, set out to kill him like Moby Dick.

Between continental ocean changes and mountain ranges,

He was shelved and plated,

The dissipation showed in behavioural changes.

 

What used to be his usual or unusual diet and routine became

circumscribed,

In what could be only described as a muddy puddle in a ‘green’ fungal pond.

It all became too much eventually,

His conditioned responses were not trained to respond to the overload of these strange circumstances,

He began to show signs of weariness and to look like he was bowing out,

Like a bird flying in ever diminishing circles,

He, with his weakened and unflappable wings,

Fell near dead upon a frozen lake.

 

He lay there like a dead albatross,

Same lack of coloration as the snow and icy fog.

Unnoticed and alone, except for his non-cod eyes,

To all extent and purposes he looked dead.

Was he a fish? Was he a bird or an exhausted human being?

In his hazed and dazed half unconscious spirit,

He didn’t know and no longer cared.

His flying days were over; his swimming days were done,

And if he was a human being was his race run?

If he was an animal who had eyes that could cry,

They would refill an ocean with his tears,

Washing away mountains as mudslides.

 

Shivering shook through him along with mortal fears,

It was winter deep above and deeper below,

But deeper still within.

 

His heart beat like a lone drum band,

His drummer’s hands were frozen, trying to move his gangrenous feet,

The sleet blinding his closing eyes, he finally fell into a comatose sleep.

 

He lay there covered over in a hunchbacked mound of snow,

Looking like a winter’s grave covering someone you loved below,

He wintered there in his frozen heart,

Rock solid in and on ice thick,

Until the snow and storms of winter showed signs of waning,

The ice thinning he began to slip,

The ice on him began to melt,

Like a snow-capped mountain range,

When he eventually began to open his eyes,

Everything around and about him seemed changed and strange,

If I am a fish, do I want to swim anymore?

If I am a bird, do I want to fly anymore?

If I am a man, who am I anymore?

 

He thought he saw a wraithlike figure on the shore,

Was it for real as he tried to make out more?

Was it a man cooking on lit coals?

He looked like someone who could only be fishing for souls.

He heard a voice calling and someone beckoning him to shore,

Miraculously he stood up and walking on water now,

His winter coat had melted; he was neither dead nor drowned.

 

The wood was laid, the fire was set,

With two small sticks criss-crossed,

The pan sat there with two small fish,

This, my friend, is your Piscean dish.