Trolling the Kennebec
The outboard drones, pushing the whalerdownriver against the tide.
We are trolling for blues.
This is our third day,
and we have caught nothing.
You stare far off
watching cormorants search
the surface for baitfish.
Watching you, I read in your
lined face the need
neither of us speaks:
A fish must strike
that you, giving me his life
on a line, might give me
your deep love of this place
that you have brought me to:
A fish must strike
that I, taking his life,
might give you our brotherhood
sealed against the waste of time
stretched beyond us
like the river we troll.
Then as we have dreamed,
the strike comes. Thirty feet down
the blue smashes my lure,
tears line from the reel,
and two-hundred feet up river
rises, water flashing from his side,
tailwalks, and falls again
into the deep. Stunned,
I do not move.
"Fish!" you shout.
I wake and feel his swift
weight. All time is present as I follow,
my arms aching, his circling
runs and bring him to your gaff.
When I look up, I see
the tide has carried us far
from where we started.
Boats have gathered about us:
their occupants wave,
cheer our triumph,
and move off.
Drifting, our gifts given
each to each, we sit,
where we want to be.
Between us the body
of the blue shines,
and we are whole.
John R. Leax
Copyrighted by John R. Leax 1999. All rights reserved.