a fairytale ending

in the dark ocean of the night, the moon stands, a lone fisherman.
the waters around him thick with their stillness.
his moonlight net cast out to gather the whole night,
to contain it,
but it cannot be done.
the secrets it knows, infinite.
its bounds, shifty.
what lies at the edge of the darkness?
beyond the fisherman's net?
a vastness incomprehensible to even the fisherman himself,
who is blind to all without his net.
but this is the justification for breath,
that we are small.
that the moon's bright and glowing web, too, is small.
and then, just as you begin to feel that you might know the night,
that you watched the fisherman as an apprentice would his master and may be wiser,
the night is stolen by the light.
the fisherman's net comes up empty and you are left with your questions.
the fisherman leaves slowly, betraying nothing, neither regret nor hope.
his departure swollen with some age-old story that only he and the night know.
the sole certain thing is that the two will meet again,
like old friends for whom the joke never gets old and the competition never wears.
and you will chance upon them as they share secrets and stories,
and you will try to understand their youthfulness when every meeting is the same--
the fisherman always drawing in his barren net,
as if the peace he finds is in the act of casting it out instead of in success.
there is comfort in its emptiness,
as if it proves the night's secrets to be true.
and so,
he will always test his friend's honesty--
to keep the balance,
and the bet even,
and all the rest in suspense over the curiosity of the vastness,
and the moments between the fisherman and his sea.