The Man Mending His Net
The man mending his net
needle in hand
net hung on its nail.
The man mending his net
thinks about the need to stitch
pictures the fish that might escape
through that rip.
The man mending his net
mends his world.
The serious man
expertly threads
his needle with red line
shoos away the black fly
spits chewed nylon
offers his thoughts about the weather
which are always right.
They still listen when he says it will rain
when he says the wind will blow.
The man mending his net
doesn’t scold life
nor the mesh for its lack of fish
nor the big trawl ships.
The man mending his net
tells fisherman’s tales
with such earnestness
he doesn’t seem a fisherman.
The man mending his net
seems a happy man, distant
measuring in strokes
his silence, his will to live.
The man mending his net
and only now, to me,
my father
is just a man,
a man who mends his net.
Translated by Rachel Morgenstern-Clarren
“The Man Mending His Net” was published in Asymptote, Issue 6.
You can read and listen to the poem in the original Portuguese here.