Meeting Your Match

by Lynn White

D H Lawrence once wrote

that there were lots of good fish in the sea

but as the vast majority were mackerel and herring,

unless you were mackerel or herring yourself,

you were unlikely to find your fish-mate.

But that was in the teeming wilderness of then.

There are a lot fewer fish now than in his day

and even mackerel and herring are in short supply.

Perhaps that will make it easier to meet your match

amongst the precocious survivors.

But maybe he would have something wilder in mind,

for our times,

a salmon perhaps.

There are even fewer of them now

so only the wildest will meet their match 

in todays emptying wilderness.