New Stuff

Well, I haven't fished much recently. This is because I'm half paying dues and half helping Laura to deal with a childcare crisis that'd cropped up. Laura is about to go back to work, but the daycare with which we had originally signed up made - in our opinion - a very unethical decision & we decided to back out. Yet another complication of having kids, doubled with twins! The paying dues half is the easy part, really. It's actually tough on the heart strings to leave your kids for too long, when they're at this age :).

Anyway, now that the daycare situation is mostly behind us, I look forward to getting a trip or two in before the iron door of Winter shuts up the rivers, and the cold ices up the guides more than I can stand.

Also, I've had a few minutes to update my Blog. First, I fooled around with some old pics & a new poem, and I came up with the entry below. If you don't like poetry, too bad. Second, I've added a slew of links to my Blog. They are all hanging out on the right hand side, ready to be clicked.

Here is a short description of the links I've added. If I've offended anyone with these descriptions, please leave me a comment & I'll make the required corrections!

• "Ron's Photo Blog", my cousin Ron's site, showcases highly professional pics of his three kids and assorted projects. If you need a wedding photographer, he's it!
• "November Rains" and "A Screaming Comes Across the Sky" are blogs created by two accomplices from the Sarnia area, who seem to like to visit northern locales for their regular chrome dosage. The blogs are written by Lambton and Trotsky, respectively. Lambton gives very accurate recounts of his trips, whereas Trotsky is very laid-back and novelistic in his approach.
• "My Life and Fishing in Western NY" is a student in - you guessed it - Western NY, and also an adept fly fisherman. His short, matter-of-fact reports are always appreciated, not to mention the fact that any fan of Grapes is a friend of mine!
• "Chrome on Chrome" is a beautifully written, poetic and stimulatingly photographic blog. I hope to meet up with it's principal author/contributor "Deju," just to compare notes - but also, hopefully, to fish.
• "The Itinerant Angler" another photoblog, whose photographs eloquently explain the presence of this Blog among my links.
• "Musings of a Mad Fisherman" Another author whose writing I thoroughly enjoy, punctuated here and there by a clever, gentle sense of humour. I'm always happy to see new entries on BCM's Blog!
  
• "Chasing Silver" Considering I quoted SD a while back, it's rude of me to have delayed the addition of his blog to my list of favourites. Maybe I can make it up to the author with a brewed offering when we finally 'hook up' on one of our local streams.

I hope you enjoy these Blogs as much as I do. If for some unlucky reason I don't post before the big day, have a Merry Christmas everyone!

p.- (and family)

Collage: "Come to me"

Come to me
for I wait
not and your leisure
cannot glean hope
from me that I
will be as you would



mine is the ice and the thaw
and the frozen lake
where the birds huddle
out of reach and mine is
the brawny river waking
to free its ice-bound sinews





all Bounty is mine to give
or repeal; will you take
the wild fish? the vaulting
magnetic scintillating creature
you so desire?
i care not







you are a ghost a
reflection in my face
a spark's flight soon
out of memory



but you will never forget me
you will never forget my
mornings and you will never forget
the fall filled with fire or
my baleful
red sunrise







Come to me then
and follow your gaze
into the deep green
of my eyes



and over lake
scapes beyond the reach
of your touch




for verily I
am within you I am
your beacon
I am your toil and your
resting place and I
am what you seek in
your solitary flight; but
which you will rarely
find and which you
will love
and lose, always.







p.-

Poem Written during a long (insignificant) Meeting

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

Fishless in the Living Room

It's a strange luxury to be able to predict with absolute precision how many fish I will catch this weekend. For one thing, it has permitted me to write an entry before-hand, but it also sadly means that the cold beginning of December won't see this average steelheader on any riverside.

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I needed to repay the prime female in my life, for some of her patience this fall. As I write this, she's out with the girls, laughing herself silly and anticipating something she hasn't experienced in a long, long time: a late rise from bed tomorrow morning. The boys are blissfully asleep, but I'm just waiting for Isaac's nightly protest over a wet diaper, while I write & prepare formula. I hope it's soon, because my morning won't be looking like the caption, above. It'll be looking like this.

I love them, all three; but I admit to the deep temptation to sample tomorrow's high waters here in the east. And Sunday's clearing flows... And there's an itch at the core of all the bones of my right arm, as though even the marrow is asking "where's the rod? when's the next cast?"

Oh, but "papa" can bide his time. Not just for next weekend, by which point the debt will be paid; but I have two sons. Most likely, they won't be shopping for skirts with mommy at any point in the future.

This is good, I say to myself as I fill the bottles for tomorrow morning's hyena's feast. This is very good indeed (insert evil laugh here).

p.-