Frozen Fish 2: PC/frozenfish_august_1995.bin/bbs/d09xx/d0925.lha/DonsGenies/DonsGenies.lha/Docs/Poems/ON ORGANIZATION

Text File | 1992-08-18 | 2KB | 37 lines

ON ORGANIZATION

The motion in a group of little tropic fish,
each angularly marked (like unitary tiles
in a mosaic), goes stepwise: each one darts,
then hovers, independent, as some others move.
There are inevitably rules connecting each
to each--an orderly, conventional design
of tactical advances; and adjacent fish
accumulate their pairs and trios into shoals,
co-ordinate their puppet lives in graphs,
as nervous networks of their small activities.

Sighing through grasses like warm wind in trees,
the lithe gazelles than fish (as wind than glittering brook)
are looser and more free, move lazily together.
Loving one another quietly, these soft beasts,
their form and pattern flowing liquidly
into new places, will draw close in company,
with delicate afflnity like that of twins.
The unseen breath of their affection keeps them safe,
and makes them move swiftly off, feeling danger together,
as they preserve sensitively their precarious lives.

In a group of six or so, people may walk,
keeping together, as primates do, for reasons not wholly
explainable.
Moving more rigidly than gazelles, in fixed patterns almost,
they interchange positions, co-operate, and talk.
Their grouping, preserved by conversation, is not primarily
due to affection:
when two friends walk together, even without speaking,
each is more relaxed than when alone; but human groups
are kept together by something between the attractions
of fish and gazelles, of armies and lovers--
an awkward feeling somewhat like curiosity.