Fishermen in  General   

When three, he fished these lakes,
Curled sleeping on a lip of rock,
Crib blankets tucked from ants and fishbone flies,
Twitching as the strike of bass and snarling reel
Uncoiled my shouts not quit
Till he jerked blinking up on all-fours,
Swaying with the winking leaves.
Strong awake, he shook his cane pole like a spoon
And dipped among the wagging perch
Till, tired, he drew his silver rubber blade
And poked the winding fins that tugged our string,
Or sprayed the dimpling minnows with his plastic gun,
Or, rainstruck, squirmed to my armpit in the poncho.

Then years uncurled him, thinned him hard.
Now, far he cast his line into the wrinkled blue
And easy toes a rock, reel on his thigh
Till bone and crank cry out the strike
He takes with manchild chuckles, cunning
In his play of zigzag line and plunging silver.

Now fishing far from me, he strides through rain, shoulders
A spiny ridge of pines, and disappears
Near lakes that cannot be, while I must choose
To go or stay: bring blanket, blade, and gun,
Or stand a fisherman.


 

By James A. Emanuel

Tell Your Friends About It | Print This Poem

Comments

You should be logged in to be able to leave comments

Other poems by James A. Emanuel:

• A Fool For Evergreen
• Bojangles And Jo
• Charlie "Bird" Parker
• Ella Fitzgerald
• Emmett Till *
• False Notions, Fears, And Other Things Of Wood
• Fishermen
• Four-Letter Word
• Françoise And The Fruit Farmer
• Greens
• Jazzanatomy
• John Coltrane
• Louis Armstrong And Duke Ellington
• Mahalia Jackson
• Michael Jackson
• Poet As Fisherman
• The Treehouse
• The Young Ones, Flip Side
• Wishes, For Alix