Do not ask me what gets into this man
Who virtually drags me over snow and ice
The weather freezing
No really freezing
The entire bay turned
Into Arctic tundra
Which I've read about in science
Only this is real
And my cheeks hurt
And my gloves are not warm enough
And who wants to see a big dead fish anyway
“Just a little further,” he keeps telling me
“There I can see it now. Can you see it?”
Well frankly I can’t and I don’t want to either.
My eyes are tearing from the cold
The water is freezing on my face
Salt water, salt water everywhere.
So here’s this fish,
He tells me it’s a mammal,
That talks, or talked I guess,
And thinks and speaks
But all I see
Is a frozen leathery thing
With its eyes plucked out
And looking very dead.
“And why exactly did I have to come all the way out here
To see a dead fish, okay mammal, that doesn’t move
Or look very pretty either to tell the truth.”
“It’s not everyday,” he says
“That we come this close
To such of the Great Spirit’s children
To such a marvelous creature
As lovely to its family
As you are to yours
Laying cold and still.
You will not often see the likes of this.
Take it in
Remember it
It shall inform you.”
And it does.
Of course I tell my friends
How totally stupid it was
Only their mouths fall open
With envy at my adventure
And I write a paper about it
And get an “A”
And I get really interested in sea mammals
Though I don’t admit that to anyone
And most of all
I too love my family
And, much as I wish they would leave me alone,
The dead fish reminds me
I am not ready to go it on my own.