Giving Thanks

Place gifts of silver in our hands.
Give us this day
our daily fish.
-Pablo Neruda, Ode to the Sea

Thanks for fish and fishing,
For wool socks and gloves,
For hunting and fishing partners
Like W.L. Gore, A.W. Danner, and C.C. Filson.
For rutting bulls and full curl rams
For mud flats, flood plains, rim rock, and ridge tops,
Headwaters, tributaries, sloughs, and pools.
Thanks for roe and redds
For tin cups of coffee
And Spring migrations, Fall runs,
The light in June,
And the night in Winter.
For alpine lakes and glacial lakes
And phosphorescence in the bay,
For the Aurora and thunder
And the rain that brings the river back to itself.
Thanks for safe passage overland,
For birds in the hand,
Fish for the pan,
And wood for the fire.

Thank you Lord for life, for life, for life
And for giving me
The need to fish
Until my arms can't hold a rod,
To hunt until I cannot see to hunt,
And to walk
Until I reach Your shore.