Thinking of a Dead Fish on the Shores of Lake Erie

I stood there in the summer wind
Expecting to fall
In the grips of philosophy,
Where some life-altering
Revelation would hit me,
Would tumble me to tears.
Nothing more than the wind came.
I was saving ladybugs,
Caught in the fine seaweed,
Like rubies on emerald velvet,
From the flood of each tiny wave
And all the seagulls slept
And all the ducks.
The same shy surf that lapped at my shoes,
Played with the dead fish
And made it look as if it still swam.
Maybe it was swimming,
In the distant dream
Of another water.
There was a lazy, unassuming peace
In watching that fish
On the shores of Lake Erie.