Roche Lake: Fly Fishing

Up late with a bottle, early out on the lake. Loon call
rippling into quiet. Fish jump beside the boat, slap clean
their scales; my brother and I smudged with dirt
and campsmoke watch chronomids rise from the lake bed,
discard their former shell, and woozy, hatch. They swarm
the boat with sound. It’s my first time out—
novelty shines up the rods, the fly box. Supper art
at $4 a pop, a knock-off some sucker will swallow,
thinking it’s real-life.

But the fish are smarter than we think.
Nothing’s biting so we switch to shrimp,
set the bobber at twelve feet after consulting the fish finder,
$150 convenience that replaces what our eyes can see,
our hands measure—watching for colour changes
or dropping a pair of needle nose pliers on fishing line
to garner the depth.

All day out in the boat, filling up the hours.
Nothing to distract us, conversation idles. We change it up,
try a new location, try trolling, try casting.
When to give up, when to try again?
I can’t get into the Zen of it. I strong-arm the rod,
bend my wrist when I’m supposed to keep it straight,
hook myself, hook my brother’s line. Chaplin-style slapstick.
I catch two things all day: a steady pull as my hook
snags lake bottom, a big one I thought
as my line wrapped around the propeller.

Back at camp, we listen for tips: green chronomids,
cinnamon shrimp. How’s the fishing, we ask
then wish we hadn’t. Their ten to our zero
flares even the beginner’s ego.
It’d be easier with worms, spoons,
but skill is what we’re aiming for.
Wanting success, a four pound trout to throw on the grill,
we head back out. Anchor by the reeds.
Cast and cast and cast our intentions.
I can think of nothing worthy to offer
in exchange for it’s one life
and so catch nothing.


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I've been sitting on this all week trying to make it hatch. Still wrestling with the themes, but thought I'd share it. Sorry I haven't been commenting much. I have been reading and enjoying the poems though.

Last Friday in May

A Leap into the Void

It’s only that our lives
are busy, our hands
plunged in painted

portraits, portions
portioned by
sky’s middle, parallel

pasts, our fingers full
in fact so much so
that we forget

to be thankful for
such finely
featured faces.

Copies

He takes them
but doesn't believe her

She could have taken them anytime
to that shop down the street
that sells nuts and bolts
and copies keys

She could have a set stowed away
in these bags she's taking
held together by a piece of yarn
or a garbage bag tie
or even slipped onto that new ring
of keys she carries around

She could come back one night
jump on a bus or drive back the car
unlock the door while he's sleeping
and slip in beside him
as if she never left

Yves Eyes

Yesterday night, Wednesday, we went into an abstract café… the abstractionists were there. They are easy to recognize because they give off an atmosphere of abstract painting, plus you see their paintings in their eyes. Maybe I’m delirious, but I have the impression I see things like that. In any event, we sat down with them. Then we began speaking of the book Yves Peintures. Later, I went to get it from the car and I laid it down on the table. At the very first few pages the abstractionists’ eyes began to change. Their eyes lit up and in the depths, pure, beautiful single colors appeared.

Paris newspaper, dated January 13, 1955






What did I know? At the time
I was certain that Yves eyes

were brown, not earth’s honeyed hue
exposed by wind, or the chocolate

of cocoa, or blurred like weakened
coffee, but a tender doubled tint—

morning’s shady past slowly
edged in dew’s damp linens,

the shyness of water’s soft fall,
light’s luminal glance

as day’s electricity turned first
on then off. Isn’t absence

what is most real? Someone
dreams a beginning, the impossible

burst of orange— one framed
wooden window. The sky

beyond is not simply scarred by birds,
or cumbersome clouds

seam-ripped by motorized machines
but faked by fingers that study

the blue. And blue,
someone says, is the great trick—

a kind of universal masturbation,
where the hand is always eager

to grasp what it sees.

ten

The city at night
is a tinkling bracelet
of sirens

Long Weekend

Cars double-park on every block
We drag our bags down the steps
throw them in trunks, drive off laughing

We've packed our hopes for the summer
into this long weekend

We bring shorts to run around in
and a suit for water so inviting
we have to dive in
even though it still harbours
strong memories of ice

We take care to bring fleece
just in case the nights
are not quite as warm
as we've dreamed of
all winter long


Here are two poems from the last few days at the Lake - a couple more tomorrow...

Deaths of Trees

Some trees rot at the roots
fungus grows deep down among
their twenty toes
with nothing to stand on
they topple over

Other trees suffer the indignity
of having their skin scraped bare
by humans, boars, elephant tusks
too exposed to the world
they die of embarrassment

Some are hit by lightening
without warning in the night
a flash of pain slashed in two
smoldering black cauterized agony
they are too traumatized to live

Others see the fire coming
from miles away, watch
their sisters extinguish,
immobilized mesmerized
they are consumed

In some parts, a genocide takes
out a mountainside in a summer
men with their machines,
merciless blades slice unstoppable,
they are sent up the river

But this grandma tree
decades of holes sheltering
birds and small furry creatures,
doesn't fight off the scaly moss
bent and warped from
years of wind-battle
still her sparse branches
put out green leaves
each spring