"Intimations of Mortality" by JYA

An August evening on the lake.

All seems calm, but
everything is hurtling at breakneck speed
through time and space.

Each day dies a little more;
each coming of summer dark presages

the onset of the season of darkness.

The trout know, and rush to intercept

the swirling fragments of life that will

stave off starvation in the dark time.

They fight the hook, struggle frantically

to reenter their element, to obey the instinctive drive

not for freedom
but for time, precious time.

I fish calmly in the middle of it all,

going a thousand miles an hour.