You cast out a line on an empty green pond,
or was it a taut cord across
the gorge of spurious fancy,
or wires flooded with every word
except the ones you need?
They’ll sway no doubt in patience
waiting for the bite, the scramble,
the comfort they might give old men
on a second gin and tonic
in empty afternoons.
You cast out a line to see what would bite
but the bait was too late
to hook the catch of memories.
So you return to meditating,
to plumbing desire.
Sitting on this bank, smelling this stream,
where a floodtide once robbed
the meadow down ways of virtue—
the meadow where you once lay,
the place where you once prayed.
G Naz attended Yale Drama School and NYU School of Business. He tried to be useful. Still trying.