BELATED BIRTHDAY

A friend, who wishes to remain anonymous, offers our readers this Berthold Brecht poem as a birthday present for Tholos.

The Fishing Tackle





In my room, on the whitewashed wall

Hangs a short bamboo stick bound with cord

With an iron hook designed

To snag fishing nets from the water. The stick

Came from a second-hand store downtown. My son

Gave it to me for my birthday. It is worn.

In salt water the hook's rust has eaten through the binding.

These traces of use and of work

Lend great dignity to the stick. I

Like to think that this fishing-tackle

Was left behind by those Japanese fishermen

Whom they have now driven from the West Coast into camps

As suspect aliens; that it came into my hands

To keep me in mind of so many

Unsolved but not insoluble

Questions of humanity.









                                          Berthold Brecht



                                         (transl. Lee Baxendall)