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to the lee and the sea will be smooth as waxed stone. A place he will see for the first time all in the glow of the knife-edge line. Where he has tasted from. And known, against his feathered skin, by weathers coursing over the dune front and between the houses that stand a ruined phalanx all along the shore. And heard, in the waves’ roar. Beneath a sun dull as molten iron ore he cannot hear it anymore, only the blood, hammering in his ears: fish - fish - fish - fish - fish - fish
Osprey of Long Island Sound Gotta Getta Fish! Stewart B. McKinney National Wildlife Refuge © 2019 Mark Seth Lender All Rights Reserved Fog, drifts. A knife-edge divides the dawn. Above, clouds and darkness. Below, the darkling sea, at rest. Quiet remnants of a storm that came in the night and left in the night. How the lightning must have terrified him, the young osprey, on the nest on his own. Where he slept alone. The first time in his life. And the night was long. And woke alone also to the terror that is hunger.
Gotta catcha fish, Gotta catcha fish, Gotta catcha – fish -fish - fish Tipping of the tail, Flashing of the scales Gotta catcha - Gonna getta - Gonna find a fish, fish - fish - fish - fish - fish DIVES! - and Rises - DIVES! - and Rises Shaking, the water slaking, a rain of his own making, taking, his life’s force away from him a drop at a time all, for nothing. He circles then hovers the ocean covered granular and dark as emery cloth; he must see through. fish, fish, fish Till I finda fish Till I catcha fish PLUNGES!
The fog lifts. Now Young Osprey makes for the Bight. Where the eddies churn all along the sand bar and to the left and the right menhaden feed on silversides, and the clinker blues feed on them. And him to take big and small as and if he can, written in the circle of life. The signs are good. The water is cool. The bait will rise. The outflow is running
Osprey struggles, falls back pulls up, up, to his neck and shoulders wings outspread around him and the weight of the wet keeping him bound. To give in is to drown (like so many come before him). While the gray of the sky and the blinding eye of day both ignore him. It is all will, he is all in, it is never, or it is NOW:
One! Last! Thrust! - And in his talons …FISH! …FISH! …FISH! …Gotta FISH! …Gotta FISH! I GOTTA FISH!!!
