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