Ichthyol Odyssey

[gruff]

If you wish to pull a rarefish from the sea
don’t cast your line from beaches
the water is too shallow, you’ll disrupt
the bathers lying in  pale sand
washed up – too soft for the sea
or wandering along the shore catching
castoff shells passing castles
before entropy pulls them down,
melts them back into the shore.                                    << Echoing previous feedback; this stanza drew me in right away. I also found                                                                                            some of the imagery/metaphor here (and elsewhere) seemed to grow with                                                                                            subsequent reads, which I particularly enjoyed.
 
Oh, I suppose that you could charter
some aging  schooner wretch to take you out

Beyond                                                                       << I'm not always a fan of lines broken for single words this way. It caught me a                                                                                         bit on the first reading, but I ended up thinking it works perfectly here - I'm                                                                                           converted.

the sulking wharfs where ships are moored
like rotting teeth
out past reefs reaching up like beldam fingers
out to the murky thunder of the seas
and drop your line
down past where a wan sunlight strains
then deeper still into a trench that’s never
tasted the small seed pearls of oxygen                      << Echoing previous feedback again; this also got a wow from me
that get sucked in by undertow.
But that is not the way to catch a rarefish.
 
No, hear me now, you need to turn
your sights away from coral
colored buildings and travel through the valleys            << I also liked the the choice of "coral colored buildings" to                                                                                                                        transition from the sea, back in to the land here
then past the crowded cities and then
through the valleys once again
and then again until even changing seasons
seem to match the cadence of your footfalls.
And over time and time and time                                   << I think this is the only spot I'm even a little uncertain with - the exaggerated                                                                                           three repeats of time then dropping back into another and - I feel like "and"                                                                                           should be raised a line or changed so not to repeat in the next; but only if                                                                                               I think (perhaps too much) about it.
and you will reach a mountain range that dwarfs
the long horizon. The air grows thin as you climb            << The voice seems to change a little here for me, with "The air grows ..." It                                                                                               works fine as is, but I wandered if another line break might work well. It                                                                                                 seems like an important step of the journey is being crossed.
and grows so cold that rough crystals form
and scratch along your skin until it stings.
 
When you have climbed so far that limbs
begin to fail and you are more alone
than a single whisper in a cave
you will find a pool so still and isolated
that your reflected face
is the same face as that pool
and you will find the rarefish.

Hello

I've read this through a few times today, and will be reading again. 

Other than to echo the sentiments above, it's hard to find comment. If you don't change a word, I think you have a great poem. However, that doesn't seem enough to leave as critique, so I've tried to add a few things that came to mind while reading above. 

I also noticed "ships" was being questioned. While it didn't seem out of place to me, if you're looking for alternatives, perhaps something like "wrecks" might still have enough of the ship image and play into the rotting teeth - depending on the image you're looking for.

Thanks for sharing. I've enjoyed reading and thinking about this one.