Folly Redeemed

Standing like
a forlorn ghost
by the river's sterile banks
the fisherman may seem
to the passerby
a fool
who has risen before the sun to
brave the wind the ice the
roaring current
to stand up in
water to his thighs
seeking
fish that the observer
does not see materialise

Instead the fisherman stands
there methodically
drifting
his tiny float down
and casting it up and floating it down
and casting it up and standing
there
lonely and intent
stupidly absorbed
like
a fool

And hours later or
sometimes days or
sometimes weeks and months
the little red float on
its passage through
the nebulous green
waters skirting
a seam or tracking
over the trench will
hesitate it
will tick or shoot down in
to the swirl
and the rod will bend upward
and there will be a great pulse and
muscular throb
of silver from the depth
and this is what
the fool
- now fisherman -
was waiting for.