Nate Fish’s Blog

“Mountain”
Coal black and dominating, leering
Outside my haven’s cloister window;
the luscious time-melting mounds
spread out before you are so inviting
to bliss-seeking barefoot wanderers.
When leaving monastic milieu, my heel
Will pass tawny emerald scenes
(my will the only worthy prominence),
striking harsh, jagged crags
that greet feet with untold malice.
Your knolls pseudo-sublime don’t deceive me.
I stroll and stumble anyway,
treading and struggling without pause
to know that I have seen you face,
have smacked it with my sole and moved on.
–Nathanael Fish
First published in the Asbury Review, Spring 200, Vol. XXVI

“Entreating the Spirit”
Oh, Greatest Love that my conscience
Most earnestly lists to entreat,
Grant me that higher unity
Of which my vain attempts
Cannot meet.
How every faculty
Will not bring its self
To your presence to greet.
So in my helpless estate
Fastbound in grace that my world
Could never compete,
Fill with Your love
My emptied being
That all I am
May be complete.
–Nathanael Fish
First published in the Asbury Review, Vol. XXV, Fall 1999

“Maybe Someday I Will See”
It’s an unusually cold July night in Northeast Ohio. I just turned off a depressing movie that had won enough awards that the publishers listed those on the box instead of the summary. And I don’t know why I came outside to write.
The movie seems to have a lasting reflection since it was about a bunch of loose ends that get tied up. Myself caught in a world I can’t really live in and a belief that I can’t seem to follow, the fish-shaped candle burning next to me has more loyalty in its flickering existence.

I used to mock the ones that wrote so deeply no one could understand, but suddenly it is clearer what their motivation might have been: the waterfall, the children who sing such beautiful songs but never say my name. The other me in the past that never visits, the place where prayer was valid that I forget the location of.

This seemed like a good idea to put this all down on paper but now my thoughts don’t have any more direction than this prose. I usually go for something emotionally buoyant, but right now the only way to get through is to hang onto what I have and hope some new epiphany beings me back. But how many summits of revelation have I reached only to die of exhaustion before I could enjoy the views?
–Nathanael Fish
First published in the Asbury Review, Vol. XXVIII, Fall 2001

Do we look happy now or what? Our parents got us a back yard to run around and do other “stuff” in. We know one person is happy at least because he doesn’t have to take us outside on leashes
anymore.

Gracie & Gimli

Yeah, this is Sharkbait to Homeschool, do you read?

My wife, Stacey, and our two amazing dogs, Gracie and Gimli

“Life on a Bridge”
Life on a bridge is a restless one;
Especially when it gets heavy traffic.
Standing in the middle, looking down
at the river with a current only slightly slowed
by unseen low-head dams,
the fallen limb floats so gracefully on its
wide aquatic path, and envy swells.
My attention snaps back to traffic
as a truck driver sets his jake brake
to grind into the random music of many motors
humming my languid mind a lullaby.
What makes it so easy for them to cross?
How are they sure which is the right lane?
I take my cramped, sweating hands
Off the rail and turn to face the traffic
with drivers continually giving me puzzled looks
to ask why I left my car in the emergency lane.
The hazard lights catch my eye
and I am entranced by their rhythm.
My phone rings that same melody
I used to enjoy but now find obnoxious.
I quickly apologize to her for running late,
and tell her traffic is heavy.

–Nathanael Fish
First published in the Asbury Review, Vol. XXVIII, Fall 2001

“Where and When It’s All Coming Into What”
The certainties of newness include finding the means to see what is new.
The conjunction of anticipation lies between your
Loosely poignant questions and my precarious inability
To disclose my inner parts.
Buying just a slice of bunt cake at our first meeting
Didn’t fulfill your famish.
Never met anyone like this or like this before.
Some would call this random and some would say you’re not my type—
A fork can have its prongs bent into a spoon’s gentle curve.
Yet, in a land where brazen blondes are a dime a half-dozen (effects of inflation),
A heart of virtue is worth a lifetime at the cancer bed.
Amazing the ways people learn to communicate
Without really having that much to say.
New ways to pass along without adopting fathomable empathy.
I am a veritable ocean including coral reefs, but still at low tide.
If I could only get off this lifeboat and find better nourishment than survival rations;
If you could distract the tiger with the whistle,
I’ll hide under the tarp and stab his gut.
Do that or tell the gorilla upstairs to stop jumping
From the window sill to the dining table.
Has my ceaseless transmigration of intuition become so transparent?
If you can see so well, become my eyes
To see through the lazy low-lying clouds of superficial consumerism.
The way we live is the way we eat
And the way I eat is the way I live.
This isn’t about you and me anymore, if you couldn’t tell.

–Nathanael Fish, Fall 2003
(Particular influences/allusions: First date with Stacey, Life of Pi, and Ishmael)

“Sonnet One”
Written for and read for my marriage proposal to Stacey
With woken steps and lighted path my heart
Approaches the crowning cusp of so much sown
When all my fears of what I cannot own
Now here decree loyalty’s every part.
The most delighted avenues are those
Never looking with wary eyes to tread.
We find Him bestowing new joys unfed
And melding us in songs we can’t compose.
Eyes once blind now see and blindness is sight;
The dove has descended, love weaves the flame;
Time descends, marked only by love’s new name
But for now all else is encased by Light.
May lips absorb forever any tears
And feet dance His true rhythm all our years.

Nathanael Fish, 2/05

Welcome to my blog. I’m not much of a blogger, but I am always looking for the best place to express what I want to express (pics, usually). So, I guess you can just subscribe and see what happens.