O fisher of dragons

O fisher of dragons

On whose skilled hook I dangle

Feathers askew at a grotesque angle

On the banks of a well at the end of the day:

(where on a lilypad, face to the river,

a leaf lingers gold in the waning light

till a passing spirit heaves the waters,

sends it sinking:

in the rushes and the reeds and the cattail beds

a crocodile passes. The child is already humming, rotting

a hungry bird picks them, scatters bones on the water;

in the dark houses, wailing.

at the stony couch by oil light

in the chamber close are gathered

dead feathers, small bones

twigs from every spider’s cubit

of riverbed where the mourned one rested

: therefrom the bald priest, with charms and turnings

felted the fly, a bed for spirit,

that fed the ancient fisher’s hook)

When at last your castings, old one,

Draw dragons roaring, thousand-throated

Writhing from the song’s cenote

And in their starry maw I dwell

Hear, fateful fisher, the prayer of that mote

Who late on a lilypad did lie:

if ever you drew a pearl

from the inmost depths of the dragon’s tail,

hear my cry!

When I am reborn with the stars

and the leaves in the stream,

Let me be set in silver, resting with pearls,

For another eon’s passing

At thy holy breast to lie.