All right. Try this, <br />Then. Every body <br />I know and care for, <br />And every body <br />Else is going <br />To die in a loneliness <br />I can't imagine and a pain <br />I don't know. We had <br />To go on living. We <br />Untangled the net, we slit <br />The body of this fish <br />Open from the hinge of the tail <br />To a place beneath the chin <br />I wish I could sing of. <br />I would just as soon we let <br />The living go on living. <br />An old poet whom we believe in <br />Said the same thing, and so <br />We paused among the dark cattails and prayed <br />For the muskrats, <br />For the ripples below their tails, <br />For the little movements that we knew the crawdads were making <br />under water, <br />For the right-hand wrist of my cousin who is a policeman. <br />We prayed for the game warden's blindness. <br />We prayed for the road home. <br />We ate the fish. <br />There must be something very beautiful in my body, <br />I am so happy.<br /><br />James Arlington Wright<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/northern-pike/
