In early summer 

On a sunny morning

An hour past sunrise

At deep low tide

A week beyond the full moon

Latitude 41.4373° N 

Longitude 71.4512° W

I discovered a buried treasure

Revealed by the receding tide

After a fierce storm.

A fish found half a foot

Under the surface.

An artifact in stone. 

His mouth open

A small eye

A beautiful body

With mottled scales.

I nearly dug him up to 

Take him home

For a closer look. 

Instead I took a photo.

Fearing my own over-active imagination, 

(As my mother characterized it.)

I checked my observations with an experts

(I did not want to put a fish mask on an

Ordinary stone.)

I asked my brother

A fisherman 60 of his 66 years on earth.

Does this look like a fish to you?

He replied in brotherly fashion,

Of course. A striper, I am sure.

That beautiful fish has haunted me 

Every day since. 

Poking at my heart with wonderings.

Who buried him?

For what end?

Is he a simple act of nature?

(As if there was any such thing!)

Every day since

I have looked for that fish

At the exact place 

Where I left him.

Searching at high tide

And low

At mid-tide

After a storm when the remnants

Of the old pier poke through the sand.

I pace and comb the beach

As if I am in a crime drama.

Looking for clues

No trace of him. 

I have asked other beach walkers

Have you seen the stone fish? 

No one has.

I fear that he has been revealed only to me. 

And like so much of life’s mysteries

We are obliged to share our own.

The way we see the world

How it is revealed to us.

Even if that magic moment never arrives again.

The blessing of it never ends. 

The comfort of knowing it rests

Just under the surface

Making it buried treasure. 

(A wise man once said

You need to see the flight, not the feathers.)