[4.5 minutes reading time]

Sen Ka Do [River Under the Way]

 

A year had ended, yet the era was receding,

The fish were hidden, the water was veiled,

The sky was far beyond, the silent bitter blizzard,

So in a way it was breathtaking, to gaze below the ice,

Spy the slowly rising treasure, all silver and glittering,

And see half a thousand shadows, cast upward on a thermocline.

 

Before dawn the fish crew, towing sleds behind each skidoo,

Had left behind, the lake-side factory lights,

Headlamps bounced, there seemed no compass points,

Neither sign of distant trees, yet in the hollows,

Slush had puddled, pressing down the ice,

All was clamour, nothing close to normal.

 

Esa the fisher-leader, the wind at his back,

Weaved this way and that, called across and waved his arms,

It’s never been this warm, not in mid-winter,

He pointed to a place, a skidoo was there and abruptly gone,

They had even then, lost a month of ice,

At the start and end, of the winter seining season.

 

At his home the night before, Esa had unrolled in the taiga forest,

The sacred family map, put down salt and pepper pots,

Two mugs on other corners, this chart of Puruvesi lake in fine-grained detail,

So wide it was, it had its own weather system,

In old script were marked, a hundred seining sites,

This mesh of secret apaya, this was the way of boundless ice.

 

You have to learn about each place, you have to know five landscapes,

The seabed and the water column, the rough lower surface of the ice,

The ice itself and warming air above, yet Esa still had to dream,

How the vendace fish, would choose themselves a site,

So each night he closed his eyes, and the fish would be there,

And then by day the fishers, would watch and listen to the ravens.

 

Outside in the forest, a branch snapped and fell with distant thump,

There could be a single star at dawn, bubbles in the ice,

And on the icy sphere, a chainsaw soon would roar,

Cutting one slot, then another a thousand paces distant,

Fine nets that cracked with ice, were dropped into the underworld,

Each pulled by cables, for six slow hours in the winter twilight.

 

Two gloss black ravens called, hopped from crate to black water side,

So we lay upon the ice, looked down into the river of the fish,

And there came the silver tickertape, upwards from the deep,

Those black-eyed silver fish soon were stunned, freezing as they met the air above.

 

Now came the market dash, back to distant factory,

The lead skidoo clipped a bank of ice, twisted in the slush,

It tipped over, we dived free,

A tonne of fish tottered, the crate tipped back upright,

Thus the fish soon were sorted, packed and loaded,

The fishers gave away, gifts to local people waiting at the loading bay.

 

In not so ancient times, invaders moved east and west,

They searched for sacred trees, for the local people had cut the branches,

In certain patterns sending signs, for those were story trees,

Where people sat beneath, and listened to the tales,

They hoped would heal the world, yet state and church had issued edicts,

Sought out suspicious trees, simply cut them down.

 

Well on this day came commotion, for a politician had arrived,

He wished to take a factory tour, checking how subsidies had been spent,

At the kitchen table, he spoke of baiting green MPs,

Of trapping thieving wolves, who stole babies and their livestock too,

So the factory manager unscrewed, a second vodka bottle,

And the big man laughed and called them nonsense, all those climate claims.

 

The fishermen glanced at one another, there were tiny twitches,

As they sipped, their by now sour coffee.

 

There was a single wisp of cloud in the sky. Was it fixed or hanging?

 

Jules Pretty

[Sen Ka Do: River Under the Way]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Commentary

A koan is a matter to be made clearer. It points to something of deep importance that invites us to stand in that place.

What merit had been caused? A star at dawn, bubbles in the ice. Below the fish lived freely, on their own ways as they ever did.

The fish chose to rise like thoughts, and this was how Esa selected the best apaya seining sites to fish the next dawn. On their way, the fishers themselves were comfortable with not knowing, comfortable with discomfort.

There are deep currents in the river under the way. The thousand-year tradition of collective seine-fishing. The spread of climate change.

Esa was a form of shaman, dreaming up the fish. He played guitar and loved heavy metal. One year he was looking forward to seeing the band Deep Purple, due to play in Finland’s far east. He wrote: “They cancelled at the last minute. We were too far away for them.”

On the ice-roads, said Esa, “We will be the last.”

Esa Rahunen died in 2016. That single wisp of cloud, where is it now?