Night-fishers

They might almost be bushes, boulders,
they sit so still.
Night floods the meadow at their shoulders,
brims the canal, and renders rod and line
invisible.

Traffic on the by-pass sighs
as if asleep.
A mallard claps derisively and flies.
Cows rip the grass. Its being chosen makes
the silence deep.

The rooms that penned them flicker in
synaptic light;
eyes gaze at screens; ears buzz with din;
the mirror that enchants these fishermen
is lost to sight.

Upon it, jobs, debts, children, wives
leave not a mark;
its stillness underlies their lives
and raises wordless thoughts, as shy as fish,
out of the dark.