Why I Am Not a Poet, etc.
--with thanks to David Bircumshaw and Henry Gould
The fishing was good this morning, though
we never made it to the Mississippi. The Apple
is a lovely tributary; once I almost drowned
in its green, but that was a long time ago,
and I didn't, because I guess life still
needed something there. Well,
for instance, as I said to my son Brooks,
who is starting to be a painter, many times
(as I've said many times to him, that is), if
you are going to put your life into
painting, make sure you stay low, walk slow,
and lay the fly right along the velocity
changes. The sun was just starting to burn-
off the fog, and a doe walked across the riffle
right upstream and didn't startle. A heron stood
in the next pool, shimmering, "like
some kind of religious lawn ornament,
or something," my son
said. And so I watched my son fish,
covered in an actual gold,
his back to the sun.
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