The Wife and Her Fisherman
A Poetic Tale
written by
Gregory Paul Broadbent
I
The Fisherman’s Wish
It is written somewhere that
Golden Fleece lie in the bright sunlit fields
near the sun’s great home
where life cannot reach but by trickery,
and where death comes only to be tricked into life.
You sink into your chair with your curlicues drooping
into the soft flax you spin as braids of wool
blow around on the weathered floorboard with the dust.
You slump down with that same simple smile
that drops into your face before you drop the wool.
Motioning, with an eyebrow lilt, the end of day,
you mark the secret passage we take to our temple
where we sleep and dream of golden fields
full of all the fruits and fleece of our wishes
ready to be plucked like cotton from the bush,
ready to be spun into gold,
just as we dream our Earth is as it is in our Heaven.
Sometimes in your sigh
I see your wish, I see
you settle into your spinning with a shrug
as you sigh again.
Sometimes I see your cold, wrinkled, weathered hands
curl around the single flaxen line.
I see your heart shooting out like arms around the world, your sad shoulders bridging your blessed head
in repose and regret.
Might I steal into the fields of the sun
and take a golden dream?
Should I live one, just to give one?
I will go, find a fish,
go aboard my boat to hook a wish
so that you should sigh no more or cry
and think the world will pass you by.
I will post the other chapters as I go.
