SINGING FISH

        Beidh ceol, caint agus craic againn
                —for Tom Sharp
My grandmother was always after
telling me stories about the coelacanth.
Irish words, she said, the singing fish
as she parsed it with her Gaelic dictionary,
with its cover and frontice pages missing.
Burned in the kitchen fire, she said.
What she saved—was not the kitchen,
but the book. It was a key to her lost world.
She told me the old fishermen stories
of prehistoric singing fish caught
in deep water nets off Béal Feirste.
No matter that coel means hollow
and akanthos means spine.
It was all Greek to her: Ceol agus cant.
Yet her translations were more accurate:
the fish did sing of lost worlds, other eras.
She was always after telling me stories like that—
transliterating an older music into my mind.
All that ceol & craic, I had no idea
I was growing up, lost in the music
between tongues.

8/17/13
Published in Bay Area Generations 15, Nov. 24, 2014

Beidh ceol, caint agus craic againn "We'll have music, chat and craic."
This is the article (and my grandmother's "transliteration" of ceolacanth) that spawned the poem. Note the date: 1975.

See article on its 1938 discovery in S. Africa, the Smithsonian, 2017

Jack Crimmins‎ to Mo Hurley
August 17, 2013 at 9:10 AM ·
Hi Maureen, been reading yr Literrata blog this morning...Lew Welch, Jack Gilbert and Linda Gregg, Baker and Barstow, your wonderful poem, "Singing Fish". Very cool writing. Keep on keepin' on. Thanks.

Mo Hurley Ta, Jack. I've no idea where it comes from, it doesn't come often, but when it does, it's a rocket ride. I hold on for dear life, wrestling with language in all its wartiness, and hope it comes out something like the inner music in my head. Post comments under the pieces? "Singing Fish" is still first draft—thanks to a post from Thomas Sharp for inspiration.

Cool...very low tech...never quite managed to ever post a comment on a blog...maybe give it a try again someday...! —Jack