Sarah thought it would be good to share some of Mark’s words—he was an amazing poet. This poem appeared in Commonweal Magazine.

Spearfishing

Youthful Maui, with bone tipped spear
Obtusely angled towards the mobile hedges
Of ruffled silt, stalks parallel, sleek
Javelin quivering. A liquid wind that ridges

The sand envervates the flotsam, shifts
The boy into dynamic rhythm with aqueous terrain.
Eyes attend each wriggling shadow that wafts
Ethereal, seeking reward from this foray

Between solution and precipitate. A coney
Breaks; the hunter dives, and in a kick he closes
The space, lets free and lances the body.
The Ulua jerks in a storm of sand and scales;

Through exploded belly hang veined intestines;
Mouth a circle of agony; their eyes, akin.

Maui: Hawaiian demigod who was born premature, thrown into the ocean, where sea creatures cared for him until he was old enough to live on land.

Bone tipped: an allusion to Maui’s magic hook made from Pele’s bone.

Ulua: a Great Fish.