The Tailor Fishermen
In the winter dusk when the sea turns green and silver
And dazzling white as the tall wave topples in foam,
That is the time to fish from the beach for tailor
And over the sandhills the tailor fisherman come.

They know that this is a fish like the sea itself
With the same cool colours, the same white rushing intensity,
And they cast far out between a wave and a wave
Well pleased if they can be hooked to such an immensity.

And if there is nothing yet to snatch up the bait
Of garfish or mullet and pull like a horse in the breakers,
Well, they know how to fish so they know how to wait;
And while they are waiting I study these tailor takers.

And they look well with the gulls in the winter weather
With rain coming up and the wind on the long wet beach;
They stand in a fine democracy together
Each keeping his place and nobody talking too much;

They do not inquire each other’s name and address,
Income, religion, status or nationality;
They accept each other by the long white foaming seas
As men who fish, and that is their rank and quality.
They acknowledge as a kind of kindred, old distant relations,
All salty objects cast up and dried in the sun,
The starfish lost from its far red constellations,
Cunjevoi, beadweed, sponge, white cuttlefish bone.

They nod with respect to the portuguese man-o’-war
Wet on the sand with its streamers like purple string;
They know it is what the sea is and what men are,
The deep blue heavenly bubble, the searing sting.

And they themselves as the dusk begins to deepen
Seem like some natural growth of the foam-wet sand;
Sombre and solitary, waiting for a fish to happen,
With the waves about them, like pillars of rock they stand.

And talking to no one, fishing in my own station,
I am glad to have stood with such people in the cold wind;
They haven’t gone soft with too much civilization,
They practise an art that has been of use to mankind.

And may be again in the wild white rolling of time;
And well that they should, for how the waves glint and roar
In the hollow of night when they pack their gear and go home
And no one is fishing for tailor any more.