by november the
rain has lost all
its sweetness and the
warm leaf-smell of october
is a memory
shed by the wind sighing
a winter's breath over
frozen lips of
bark to trouble
arboreal dreaming
all the world has readied itself to die.
and yet
in the river
the pendulum already
has tapped the
glittering portent sleek
steelhead come
from the sea
waiting in cold flows
piously
for something unfathomable
that
the earth should be made
to move
that
the unconsuming flame
of sunlight again come
to outlast the moonlight and
that the trees
come to sigh and
weep over the streams
from love-loss for the shining
fish who have gone
back to the
lonely somnolent depths
6 comments:
Wow, you are very talented and should be published or at least appreciated by your fellow man...it is a pleasure reading about your boys and your adventures as a Dad.
Ciao Bello Stronzo
grazie coglione! haha! for a second, I thought I was actually getting a compliment, but I know when the bello stronzo is on the loose!
p.-
Superb, as usual.
Can I mssume that when I go long periods without fish activity that they are simply being pious?
Hope to see you next week, I want to tighten up my focus on the East.
Cheers,
Joe
Joe, that would be self-denial, which is an excercise in which one can 'indulge' without being pious. Nah I'm just talking about their pilgrimmage to (for them) the land of hoo-hah!
p.-
Lovely read.
THX
This morning in the black we toe-tap dumbly and wade by touch.
The river moves constant against our legs, gravity tugging it north then west.
Out of sudden eddies, salmon explode.
The moon and hers hover over the day, and under all those blinking eyes of the dead
I might remember to fish our morning
as carefully as a deer hiding in her own stillness.
At the horizon the light is still dim.
Breaking the tick, tickety tick of split lead
bouncing behind the whirling fly just
off the bottom, the rod jerks hard twice
then bows like a hilltop to the east.
The steelhead breaks downstream
and I am lost with the fish
my feet moving over rocks,
through shallows as if I'm water.
A solid pull, the head swing,
a short run, line whining
off the reel and I'm lifted
from the gravel bottom when
he blows through the water
and into the morning,
silver, catching the moon
in his cupped tail,
spoon-head swinging,
and every scale
throwing light,
glowing backward
toward the water
like a diving star
so bright he might glow
or steam when he lands
splashing, sending the river breaking
like glass, splintering into a mist.
But when he comes down, it's all black
and the line in one last whip pulls and goes limp.
The rod is straight as an alder limb in summer.
I stand in the dark sweating, the roar of water
in my ears, the stars wheeling above
toward the west, darker now, farther on.
The river lights faintly, my hands tremble
with the fluttering leaves on the bank,
my feet planted firmly on the stone bottom.
Hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed yours.....cheers (and by the way we really TUNED 'em on Sunday bro!!! LOL!)
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