a magazine for anglers
by Willard Greenwood
I went to the woods
with Moo Shu Beef leftovers
in January,
craving a deep pool to fish
before the State restocked the river.
No litter or foot worn path,
nothing but the crunch of snow’s crust
and the lung-burn of cold air guided me.
The riparian canopy,
dimmed the glare of snowfields.
The bleak light seemed tired of me.
The violent green of un-snowed on moss,
and black bark on leeward trunks,
stark against the land’s white over-belly.
Break in river ice,
good current over gravel beds
for spawning trout.
Would the Spring water be deep enough,
would the gravel bar be big enough to hide fry with their yolk sacs?
In this rheumatoid afternoon going black around Four,
non-existent trout stayed covered.
I slip-scrabbled partway
down the ledge
biting badly at a mouthful of Moo Shu,
gouging my panicked tongue.
Still,
this overhang might shadow a spot
deep enough for stocked trout to survive the winter.
A good air-flow tumbled into the pool.
I left the brook trout alone down there,
over the crayfish buried under rock and mud,
where there may be nothing but my mind and stone in the dark.
In warm weather,
I’d be on the gentle side
casting to the pool
watching light slip from the world
below the river’s surface,
and seeing the bank above,
where a red salamander
tumbles in, disappears with a flash,
and if that could happen,
I would continue walking the earth.
Willard Greenwood teaches American Literature and Creative Writing at Hiram College where he is also Chair of the English Dept. and Editor of the Hiram Poetry Review. He also teaches a course called The Ethos and Practice of Fly Fishing.
