Wave Wake, photo and all text ⓒ Irene O’Garden 2012
While we are in Niagra-On-the-Lake for our annual journey to the Shaw Festival, I offer you a summery remembrance: fishing with my Dad. This poem was first printed published in Compass Rose, a wonderful journal now online.
I’ll post again next week.
THE HOOK IN THE HEART
easy it enters
steady now
rocking from the dock
to the ribby chipped unbailed bottom
of the don’t forget the tacklebox
the coppertone the pipe tobacco
two pairs of shoes full of feet
a steady canvas gummybottom pair
two twirling bumptoed keds
bronze-red upturned outboard
sleek as a Zippo
as his Remington shaver
paddle dip paddle dip
tipping the propellor in
the gasoline rainbow spreading on the
surface of the pull and the pull
like a lawnmower cord
and the mixmaster buzz
and the gurglechurned duckweed
shoreline treeline timeline
shrinking in the sightline
shadowbottom clouds
the tremendous clouds in the breezeblue sky
and the snap of the sun on the wake
on the waves we make
as we fly through the watery way
to a shadowy bay
“looks promising today”
holler over the outboard motor
noisy as another set of siblings
persistent permanent clamoring yammery
finally stops
and the anchor drops
ploosh
easy it enters
lapping
water softly
tapping reeds
tackle’s metal melody
plunge in the bucket
slithery wriggly minnows as
lively as fingers
hook him under the dorsal fin
so he can swim
the keds curl
the pierce of the hook in the heart
clickety whizz of the casting reel
ploop of the bobber
red and white
and red and white reflected
great wide glassy lake of nothing to be done
circling settling silt
haloes
round our shadows
on the water
skeetling skeetling
redyellow flash blackwing
scratch of a match
crackle of tobacco
draw through the stem
the flute blue sigh
wind through pines dragonfly
easy it enters
shadow twist light
love twist loss
twist