Fishing on a Sunday Afternoon in October
Larson calls when summer is done for the waters have cooled
and the lake is ready for us now that most cottages are closed
and cabin cruisers swaddled in plastic on shore with crowds
gone back to the city, dragging their jet skis and ATVs.
In ten minutes my boat is uncovered, hooked up and hauled
out of its neglect from the barn. What minnows are left
I scoop wriggling from a bait shop tank together with a carton
of crawlers freed of lethargy in a fridge, then hum up
the highway that runs past a bridge, ending where water begins.
Larson waits at the landing with gulls on his shoulder,
three poles in a hand, rod tips jiggling in expectation.
I back down the ramp to launch that moment waters lift
our craft from its cradle so with it we bob and float free.
A congregation of big perch assembles twelve feet beneath us
at the edge of some weeds, ready late afternoon to take in
what might shimmer or gleam in lines we drop on them.
They rise from muddy pews, a throng lifted from a last supper,
offered on the altar of our hunger to engage mystery and eat.
As the motor planes us home on the satin sea of Chautauqua
under a lapis lazuli sky somewhere between a summer sunset
and autumn in our lives, we recall the ballast one is to the other
over years, sounding deep and dim holes where the soul swims.
Come spring, Larson plans to pull up his anchor and climb down
from the pulpit after more than thirty years, having hurled lines
and his heart in that craft. Many were caught up in what gleams.
Untangled from the weeds and years, he’ll bob and float free.
– © Angus Watkins, 2005