There is No Such Thing as a Fish

Stephen J Gould knew the biology

of the darkest of depths and the warm shallow seas rivers with rushes and ponds full of weeds,

each channel and even ditch.

All the creatures that dwell under, in and upon the vastest of oceans, the tiniest ponds

and even the fossils from seas that are gone. From every place you could wish.

He said with a sigh, please don’t think me rude when my work on aquatics leads me to conclude there isn't a system where we could construe any such clade as a fish.

There isn't a phylum, there isn't a class no order or family, or even genus (ass)

We've tried every test and nothing will pass - none of them specify fish

Though there's Sunfish, Moonfish, Starfish and Springfish, Goldfish, Silverfish, Rainbowfish and Kingfish

Swordfish, Archerfish, Needlefish and Stingfish, as diverse and many as Darwin could wish

still no one thing that's a fish

There are Porcupines, Pinecones, Quills, Pigs and Bags There's Ladyfish, Damsels, Medusas and Hags Armoured and Fighting, Flat, Flying and Flags

The idea that they're fish is the joke of some wag, none of them brag that they're fish.

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There are Ghostfish and Goatfish and Spiders and Bats Marbles, Mosquitos, Midshipmen and Rats

Cuttle, Cave, Cornette, Cow, Clown, Cling and Cat if they're fish then they'll eat their proverbial hats None of them care to be fish.

There are Dartfish and Dealfish, Devil and Dog Four-eye fish, Flashlight fish, File and Frog Snipefish and Pipefish, Jelly and Blob

but none of them state in their own bibliog- graphical category 'fish'.

There are Knifefish and Icefish and Jewel, Jack and Jaw Then the Rudderfish, Pufferfish, Spade, Sand and Saw There are Shellfish and Crayfish, Trunk, Tripod and Craw. Not if Claude Levi-Straus ate one of them raw,

or cooked one and dried it and laid it to store would it be more of a fish.

There's a goose barnacle, and a barnacle goose, There are slow fish, fast fish, fish that are loose there are redfish and blue fish, so claims Dr Seuss but there isn't one monophylitical group

that cladists agree on, so what is the use No clade universal or class or caboose it's no earthly use to say 'Fish'.

Andrew White (November 2023)

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On Home and Stories: 

The metaphors we use for story-telling 

unfolding worlds from words, and words from thought 
invoke practical crafts - of stitching and weaving, 

of kneading and baking, proving and rising, 

or the simmering stone soup where anything 

at all might do service as ingredient. 

Poetry is the most domestic of all the arts 

for although it leads us far from home, 

it begins there, at the kitchen table, 

in the beating heart and hearth of it, 

where the room is bright and human-warm 

but the shadows still scuttle in the corners. 

This is where all the best stories are told - 

around the cauldron, or over a cuppa. 

So put the kettle on. Pick up a pen, 

Find some paper, an old envelope will do - 

or if you want, you can just use your phone. 

Speak what you know, or what you need to say, 

write where you live, be it heart or in head, 

in spirit ascending, in blood and bone: 

The heat-death of the cosmos need not concern us, 
who were made to gather round the fire 

and share stories of ghosts, and loss and of love. 

Andrew White (July 2024)

Samosas 

I still remember my first samosa 

Sat in a friend's kitchen after school, 

Where her mum, Halli, is stood at the stove 

Working the biggest wok I'd ever seen, 

How they sizzled as they hit the hot oil 

Filling the air with a delicious smell. 

"Be careful" she said "They're hot. With Chillies". 
And they were - green and red and roughly chopped, 

The heat danced over my tongue like nettles 

As I bit into the crisp fried pastry, 

Through the still-warm filling of potatoes, 

Peas and fried onion, orange with spices. 

I didn't know it then but I was learning 

How the best Samosas are served like this - 

Hot, Straight from the wok. Crisp and Chilli fierce, 
The gift of long-honed skill and open joy. 

Andrew White (July 2024)  Created from a prompt from Antosh Wojcik to write about a food memory 

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Selah 

The night sky spreads its treasure above us 

its pinwheeling galexies, those cogs of 

the universe, lit up like the letters 

of the living Torah, recast for night 

in White Fire dancing on sheets of Black Flame. 
All of wisdom expressed in the dervish 

pattern scribed with electric vibrancy 

upon the fizzing quantum fields of space. 

For the book of the Cosmos is written 

in mystic language of process and change 

from the flash of atomic collision 

to the graceful disruption of merging 

galaxies over eons of deep time. 

Selah! Before us, our Book of Splendor! 

Selah. Selah. Behold this Song of Songs. 

Andrew White (November 2023)

Dancing Ledge 

The sun slides down the sky towards its edge 
transforms the sea to fields of golden wheat. 

The worn chalk path runs down to Dancing Ledge 
and you are here and I with front row seats 

to watch the sky bleed into midnight blue. 
Beneath the bowl of heaven's deep converse 

the tapestry of stars comes piercing through, 
here at the bottom of the universe 

Then what of us is there for us to own 

but all we would and none that we would not. 

So run and dance and leap and fly and fall, 

no matter that our self and sense have flown, 
the stars won't stare or judge our mad gavotte, 
the universe wont notice us at all. 

Andrew White (November 2023)

There is No Place Like Home. 

Belonging becomes an easy habit - 

a touch-stone in an old pocket 

worn smooth as beach-glass. 

Even as we hold hidden 

in our heads and folded hearts 

a sense of it as precious - that Ideal 
of Heart and Hearth as Home - 

Still, we assume a casual continuity 
as if, for us at least, Home will be 

an always there. 

Such that it's loss can only 

register betrayal - 

whether of Family or of State 

or the Systems of the World. 

To find one day disaster at our door; 
that the only way to leave home 

is to flee - in terror, in fear, 

in confusion, confounded 

by the violent rending 

of doors from walls from roofs, 

of flesh from blood from bone, 

or hearts from minds from hands… 
Finding nowhere safe from blame, 
from intolerance, from ignorance, 
or the good family shame; 

from the rising waters, 

or the roiling machineries of war… 

Left to wander the earth 

in a state of exile, 

rootless without refuge or rest, 
across swollen seas; 

to balance the risk 

of armed checkpoints 

against the dry death of wastelands, 
and the exposure of mountains; 

or the binding strictures 

of orthodoxies 

against all we hold true. 

Thus is our only duty always 

to be human in our being, 

to attend those voices 

that cry out from the wilderness, 
from behind barbed wire, 

or silenced lay vacant 

in our own liminal spaces; 

to strive each day to open 

the boarders of our hearts; 

to make of the earth entire 

and its shifting hoard of strangers, 

a people who might at last, 

in recognition of their worth, 

join hand to hand to hand 

and lift one another 

into safety and into Love. 

And welcome. 

And home. 

Andrew White (July 2024)

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