| |
STEELHEAD
Over the uncertain
stones, back casting our flies,
We waded, waderless, through the icy currents.
Our wrists using the fly rod to conduct the morning,
Feeling the weight of the four count measurement
Of air: one forward with the rhythm of the line;
Two, let the fly float back behind the ear at the end
Of the leader curving into the shape of an S;
Three, let the wrist snap the rod forward like a wand;
Four, lay the fly, the black feathers of Ariel’s magic,
Down in the swift eddies of the Grande Ronde.
The pink and silver blade of fish flashes up
Through the green rush of the deepest flow.
The rod bends over as if to pick the river up.
The tip traces a geography only the fish knows.
The line between fisherman and fish about to break:
A diagram of desire’s most disastrous passions:
The catch of our limits, of what feeds us—
Of disappointment in the tools we fashion.
The line goes slack—this disappearing act,
Of fish, of fisherman’s body, is without slaughter.
Predator, lover, wizard, conductor, only
The legs have gone numb, at one with the water.
|