Fish

Artist unknown

In honor and memory of Alex Ploeg, lost to us,

along with his wife and son, on flight MH17 near Ukraine

1.

For certain, 530 million years ago

is a long time back for a soul to

have decided to become the first fish,
and risk being different
just to feel what it is like to swim  –

everything starts with a dream,
they say,
and some soul swam in dreams,

perhaps in a manner similar to

how I fly, sometimes,
though apparently it didn’t occur
to me to become a bird –
at least, not this time

2.

I have known fish. There was one who

came to me, a quarter-sized bluegill,

that I put in the garden pond. We grew

fond of each other; I would dig up worms 

and splash the water surface, and the

fish would come to me and gobble them.

He said, “Thank you!” with his eyes

and the swish of his lovely tail, I swear.

He would jump too, if I held a worm

up; we were like one of those acts at
the big public aquariums, for years.
It was a horrible morning when I discovered

him there, stiff, on his side, two feet

above the pond, on the grand finale rock that turned

a fake stream into a waterfall. “Why did you do that?”
I asked him, gulping my grief,

six inches long –
and happy! Why my friend,
did you leap from your world into mine?
Unanswered questions are so hard,

so necessary

3.

My father killed the first fish I caught.
It was a magnificent bass, a five and a half pounder,
that I landed on a stick and line and bobber

in Canada

when I was five.

I refused to eat it.
He let his fish go

4.

He was six when he fell in love with fish,
some kind, I don’t know  –
In an aquarium. It never released him, not

his soul or his thoughts. Sometimes this

happens to a person. Something in the world

claims them and puts them on a path

and they don’t even realize that they could

have made other choices. It just is this way
and they are joyful about it, not like those of us

always looking about, unable to tell someone

else what we are looking for. It kept feeding him.
When we met, we talked about fish. He smiled

alot. He gazed into a tank of brightly colored, darting

somethings, and suddenly the little boy was there. I don’t

think he realized it. But, I did. I know the look of

a man remembering his first love.

Maybe he too wanted to swim,

but his soul departed this life like a bird

(c) 2014-2018/Jamie K. Reaser 

From "Portraits" (a work in progress)

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Dr. Alex Ploeg working at the Convention on International Trade 
in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES); photo: (c) Svein Fossa