To Catch a Rainbow

"...all my clear-eyed fish,
Golden, or rainbow-sided, or purplish,
Vermilion-tail'd, or finn'd with silvery gauze...
My charming rod, my potent river spells..."
-John Keats, Endymion, Book II

I've tried to explain why I fish. The answer seems to change with every attempt. Could be the challenge, the peace, the oneness with Nature, the river, the art, the presentation, the story, the sounds, the strike, the dance, the rocks, the birds, the bugs, the bears, the dark shadows in foam, the sun, the rain, the fish, the pals, or the wait. It's always something.

Today, it's the stripe.

TMF credits as credit's due:
Fish caught, released, and cropped :
Maybe we'll do it again someday soon.
HTML genius and fellow madman:
With thanks and much respect.

Equinox

"That happy gleam of vernal eyes..."
-William Wordsworth, The Gleaner

Leaves and lives bud with every new hour of sunlight. The world is waking to giggles and curls and "Go, Papa, go!"

Today the Earth tips in our favor. The windows glow at bedtime. We hear the waters move. The trumpeter swan's mate for life has found her.

And somewhere in the Gulf of Alaska, a multitude as ancient as the sea itself is gathering. Their goal is fresh water; their clock is the sun. It is time to return to the river.

We'll trade our sled for bikes soon, and the world will thrive with giggles and curls and "Go, Papa, go!"

Prince William Sounds

I hear the noise about thy keel;
I hear the bell struck in the night;
I see the cabin-window bright;
I see the sailor at the wheel.
-Alfred, Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam, A. H. H.

A night on the Sound.
A sound hull.
To sound the sea floor for fish and safe passage.
Sounding murres and otters in the wake.
Not a sound but the lapping waves and the eagle's cry.

She is a temperamental lover who gives and takes without warning. Her sounds are life on the water.

We have learned to listen to the sea.

ee cummings on Spring

Spring is like a perhaps hand
(which comes carefully
out of Nowhere) arranging
a window, into which people look (while
people stare
arranging and changing placing
carefully there a strange
thing and a known thing here) and

changing everything carefully

spring is like a perhaps
Hand in a window
(carefully to
and fro moving New and
Old things, while
people stare carefully
moving a perhaps
fraction of flower here placing
an inch of air there) and

without breaking anything.
-ee cummings


It's still far too cold to go to bed without a fire in the wood stove. But tonight I split wood by sunlight instead of porch light.

I haven't split as much wood as fast yet this year.

The light changes everything.

Applying the Scriptures VI

"...behold, I will send swarms of flies upon thee..."
-Exodus 8:21

Playing Moses to my Pharaoh, a friend has greatly increased my supply as well as my chances for success.

Hopes rising like the evening hatch.

Here's to trout and moving water, the cause and cure for madness and the search for deeper meaning. Kippis!

The Fishicist New Year

"See how Spring opens with disabling cold..."
-Gerard Manley Hopkins, See How Spring Opens

She's the first of many migrants to return. Won't be long until the geese, pintails, widgeons, herons, sandhills, hummingbirds, canvasbacks, sparrows, scaups, eiders, warblers, redheads, spoonbills, robins, thrushes, and kingfishers follow. After these come the fish: kings first, then the reds, rainbows, pinks, chums, dollies, and silvers. After the fish come the orcas, harbor seals, sea lions, Dall's porpoises, fishermen, and cannery workers.

But she's the first. Her landing inaugurates the new year.

Her landing is what I've been waiting for.

Two Months From Today

"You have already learned from the river that it is good to strive downwards, to sink, to seek the depths."
-Herman Hesse, Siddhartha

I have learned from fish and rivers.

The sun rarely shines over Yakutat, Alaska. The fish and river don't seem to care. The river is focused on its purpose downstream, the fish on theirs upstream. They will not be stopped.

Two months from today, come rain or more rain, upstream or down, I will sink into the Situk again, seeking the depths for curved graphite and living chrome.

I have learned to not be stopped.