The Pale Fish In Limestone Caves Poem by Richard Cole

The Pale Fish In Limestone Caves



Keep mainly to themselves, leading
The quiet life down there,
Free from distraction.

Full-grown, they are slightly larger
Than your little finger and hang
Silent in the pools, their icy fins

Barely feathering the clear water polished
Through so many miles of pure stone
It is almost not water.

And they have no stars, no vague seasons,
No light flooding the amazed chambers
Clustered with stalactites, rotting jewelry,

Roses, molars, staircases of wrinkled ivory
And sugar-pink, two-ton wedding cakes
Collapsing with a flurry of wings and centaurs

To disturb them so they are blind.
Their eyes rest like moist pearls
In their milky faces, and each creature

Will regard the other as a secret, gently,
As they reproduce with a pale shuddering
Their perfect lives.

POET'S NOTES ABOUT THE POEM
This poem and others in my first book, “The Glass Children, ” were written in my twenties, most of them when I lived in Minneapolis. Top-heavy with an expensive education, I had left graduate school to live “up north” and become a poet, whatever that might be. I was trying to make a religion out of art. Why not? We’re hardwired for God, and we’re constantly reach out to touch his face, thinking it belongs to us. Like many young artists, I lived on day jobs and little grants, justifying the way I acted by a dedication to what seemed noble. I was like a monk with girl friends, in love with the idea of myself in love with poetry.
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