At sixteen, I learned to mend the nets,
While watching herons stalk the morning tide—
The water knows what winter’s child forgets.
My father’s boat, weathered with regrets,
Still drifts where younger dreams had lived and died;
At sixteen, I learned to mend the nets.
Each dawn brings fewer fish in empty sets,
Though gannets dive where schools once used to glide—
The water knows what winter’s child forgets.
The old men speak of debts and deeper debts,
Of harvests lost, of ways their fathers tried;
At sixteen, I learned to mend the nets.
Now my own child walks the shore and frets
For treasures buried in the turning tide—
The water knows what winter’s child forgets.
The Bay still holds what memory begets:
These shells, these shores where all our stories bide.
At sixteen, I learned to mend the nets;
The water knows what winter’s child forgets.
—
Jaleel Shujath is a former cancer researcher and life sciences marketer. Currently, he is a PhD student in urban sustainability, focused on water resilience in Washington, DC. He draws inspiration from DC’s waterways, the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers, part of the Chesapeake Watershed.
