Every year, an old friend visits,
Knocking on the morning door,
Before the chickens go out.
Just for a day,
Maybe two.
.
The old rivers of light and heat,
Much alive, cry
In their thirst for night,
With the promises of fading evenings liquored
In the scent of blackberries and stale grass
Hiding in the hot afternoon.
.
This crooked summer:
Like wilting vines on a broken arbor,
Motionless, as they cling fast
To the memories of serpentine edens.
Our darlings of winter,
Tell us once more,
This passing of water,
That hungry denial of patience,
You so much waited for.
.
Your stories to fill a coming empty:
One last time.
Oh, please.
.
Our darlings of winter,
Give us this one day.
.
How many times,
Have we seen this moon set,
Sharp crescent,
Sliver of time,
Counting years,
To cast once more,
A warm May evening?
.
Our darlings of hope,
Freedom, maybe,
From bondage of self and season.
.
Please.
The slick waters will hold you there.
.
Time will become afternoon’s fast,
Before it curses the evening.
.
There is nothing moving water cannot cure.
Slipping gently downhill.
.
I just love swinging that fly through water I know.
.
One fish took me five years.
The others came back-to-back.
On a warm October afternoon.
The next will be my life.
Daring to dream a death amongst cobbles
On a liquored blackberry evening,
When the wind disappeared.
.
Fodder for caddis,
And winter’s green water to come.
Suddenly, the leaves are all gone.
The storms gave ample notice:
Ignored.
.
The alders will now paint the day’s luster,
On a rare afternoon, posing
As a cruel cheat of Autumn,
Dripping spoonfuls of honey,
Across the big bends of a fresh river.
.
Evenings are still two months out.
.
Here, morning’s curfew still remains
As some lame excuse for the wind
Spoiling the silty corners
After the flood.
.
The easy drips from mossy rocks,
The rare percussion:
The work of silent, green water.
.
I’m trying so desperately
To soak this winter into my bones,
As the water draws lines,
And curves,
And the circles hide things.
.
I know the kids still lean over the bridge,
Peering,
Into the green water mystery,
Waiting to see the ghosts
Brushing against the emerald velvet
Of winter’s passing.
How Fish bite
I once spent twelve years trying to catch a fish,
In one particular place
Deliberate in my fantasy
Lured on by this water
That fancied a fish.
And when it came,
In the space where afternoon
Begins to turn golden
And quiet,
But long before the time of frogs,
Or the last of summer’s blackberries
Cast their liquored spell,
A slow motion swirl,
A great heaving beacon across the flat water,
Slow motion, now,
In the way that memories become.
The jolt through arm and body
Letting out a great whoop,
Before it went silent again,
Suddenly.
And Evening resumed it’s course,
And I stopped counting in years.
Here,
Moored
By the soft calling turns
Of a river now purposed by rain,
We can linger in that patient lapse
Between the miseries of drought
And the sudden electricity of flood.
.
The Copenhagen-spitting sages of Weymouth,
And the oared helmsmen at High Rock,
Hiding in their closet cigarettes,
Share chit chat smiles of angst
In the nervous dawn light
While the Chinook-crazed bankies
Debate spoon and roe.
.
And a distant figure
Heaves arcing bright lines
Through shadowy secret boils
And long greasy slicks
In a solitary reverie
Of far-fetched feathered hopes.
.
This is far removed
From the life-gone-easy days of,
say, June,
The routines of August,
Or the Sunday light
After a passing April rain
Reminded us all things
Eventually come back to this time.
In the old days, I imagined fish and moving water all silver and loud. Now, things are maybe more rehearsed, but the fish and water seem to be much softer than before. Now I imagine them in the silky green water, connected to a damp landscape cradling rivers. These fish would crawl into the forest if the rain kept up just a wee bit longer, and in the early morning mist they could be found in the trickling little holes that dot the mossy floodplain forest.
In the broad, cobbled waters they become part of a enthralling choreography of movement, shadow and soft sounds. Stare long enough, and the sound goes away and there is just the movement of shadows. Now there is only slightly more unknown than known in this water. Just enough to let me crawl back into the water if the rain would let up for just a wee bit.
Usually, it never starts with a dream
The dream meticulously sculpted into an expectation
So perfect that the cries of ecstasy roar along the river
Erasing any hope of stillness that might have been there
Had nothing ever been imagined in the first place.
.
Hmmmph
.
Usually it never starts with that first sight
That look into perfection that never was dreamt any better
Better than last time, but only to be washed away
With enthusiasm misplaced and gone awry
In manic flailings trying to capture it all in one fell swoop.
.
Ohhhhh
.
Sometimes, admittedly, it might start with a splash of apathy
Because it has to be done and here we are
And along the way it becomes the next dream
And the perfection reveals itself in little debates
Comparing this to that and wondering if this is even better.
.
Oooooohhhhh
.
Always, though, a script unfolds, eluding time’s wicked arrow
Bathed in a moment eluding any grasp of perfection
Surrounded by silent calls and responses each asking nothing
Together, creating the pulsing song of a mid-winter river.
I hadn’t contemplated the distinction between habit, ritual and obsession until now. A stubborn low pressure system parked off the west coast at the end of August sends waves of warm, humid air across the coast, raises goosebumps among the tuna fishermen, but plunges the interior into an unsettled, wavering weather pattern that will surely confuse any fresh steelhead enough to ignore any of my offerings. Afternoon winds wander through the gorge without purpose, and continue to swirl about at sunset somehow dispelling that all-too-short witching hour moment before it all fades into inky blackness amongst frog choirs lathered in waves of crickets and sprinkled with the sounds of splashing fish.
It didn’t happen last night or tonight.
Leave the coast with a stoic confidence that it’s all an easy game of fetch and return home with the resolve that tomorrow will be different.
Habit? Ritual? Obsession?
In early August, the slight wrinkle on his brow,
Pushes sweat into long dusty piles,
Rows of summer’s habits.
Like the year before last
and the year before that.
His is the furled brow of finally remembering.
.
While her eyes, sometime gone askance,
Sagging with days gone long and
Now stale afternoon romance,
Still sparkle,
Like the playground at recess,
When the laughter carries
To those still inside.
Her glance is long and turning,
Letting go of a breath.
.
In a matter of weeks,
fixed on bright sky,
That precious harbinger of hope,
And the only window left,
They will cue up old records,
rehearse the dances,
Recall the words,
And sit, waiting.
Shaken Rain 