Ellen Roberts Young—Japanese Print

The fisherman has tied up his boat,

carries two fish on a pole over

his shoulder. Across the wide river

dim vista of trees and bushes,

Mt. Fuji outlined in mist behind him.

His boat has no motor, needs no dock.

When “the earth was without form and void”

it was wet, as soggy as it was shapeless.

Once there was light, Scripture says, God

spent two days putting water in its place,

wringing it out of what we now call land,

setting boundaries to seas and rivers.

Art blurs them again, the edges

of tree and river, air and mountain.

The fisherman’s river, source of life

and livelihood, is more solid to him

than the distant mountain.

Ellen Roberts Young

Ellen Roberts Young’s third chapbook with Finishing Line Press, “Transported,” came out in 2021. She has two full-length collections, Made and Remade (Wordtech, 2014) and Lost in the Greenwood (Atmosphere, 2020) as well as poems in numerous print and online journals. She lives in Las Cruces, NM (Piro-Manso-Tiwa territory). www.ellenrobertsyoung.com.