Walking

There is a small pond
near my house, and in
the evenings when the
wind is high and the
sky is alit with the blinking
traffic of a nearby airport,
I go walking.

There are seldom people
at my pond, not in the evenings
when the young and the old
are both in varying degrees of
sleep. The night hours are
reserved for the middle-aged
who without child or parent
to make demands can
stretch their legs and
beat the beaten path.

I share my pond only
with the barking dogs who
eye me suspiciously through
iron gates and the ducks that
land and take-off like the
nearby planes and their Morse-
code murmurings.

I did not start walking to be
alone, but somehow, each night,
I am. The sweeping sound of my
sweatpant legs a light percussion
in an orchestral performance whose
audience is one bald bearded man--

Not particularly sad, not
particularly glad.

Just walking.

FISHING IN NORTH CAROLINA

In September of 2016

I caught a spotted brown

trout in the Davidson River

just south of Ashville.

I was using a dry fly,

they later told me. We

had been fishing near

a hatchery. The water

was clear but slow.

The river, it seemed,

was crawling. Among

the stones and logs,

we could see several

fish darting in and out

of pockets of light.

I flicked the thin rod

to my left and right,

setting the end just

up river of a nice 20”

sleeper. She moved to

the right as the hook

drifted by. We played

the same game three, four,

five times, and she, like as though

choreographed, would move aside.

While watching the monster

of this Pigsah forest stream,

my hook and tippet drifted

down river to a  small covey

of spotted brown trout.

As I saw the striker dip

beneath the surface of the

water, I pulled up on the

top of the pole. The hook

set, and the fish swam

quickly upstream. I held

the slack of the line and

pulled her under control.

Her track became smaller

as she swam to my left

and right. My friend

slapped me on the back

as he dipped a net just

beneath the snagged fish.

I reached in to take the

fish with my bare hand.

I lifted it, and it fell back

into the net.  I took a picture.

I tried to work the hook

out of its lip. The line broke.

With help, I took the hook

out before setting the fish

back in the river. The

fish, a delicate creature, I

was later told, did not move.

I saw it turning its soft

white belly to the light.

Another friend, a river guide

from Montana started waving

the fish in the water from

his left to his right. The

movement, he said, would

get oxygen to the fish’s

gills, revive her so that

she could swim again,

and she did. And then

she stopped. He once again

moved her in the water

until she started moving

on her own. She swam

upriver, and I lost her among

the light and the fallen leaves.

My friends assured me that

she would be fine, and while

small, to pull a fish from

a North Carolina stream

with a fly pole was a

worthy victory. Later, my

friend, the river guide,

sent me a trophy picture.

The fish looked small

in my hulking hands, the

unflattering pullover I wore

distorted my chest and

stomach so that I looked more

like a monster than a man.

My beard and my hat

framed a disbelief in my

eyes, and an apology pulled

my shoulders to the muddy

river bed. I prayed for the

fish like a prayed for the

dove I shot when I was 12.

I prayed in hope that my

friends were right, that

the small 8 inch trout

was swimming upstream,

recovering, telling stories of

her thin escape. Or swimming

but unaware of why she

feels something that she has

never felt, something that

we would call pain, something for which

she does not have language.

And how many times are

we too caught and thrown

back? How many times do

bare hands slide against

our skin? How many times

are we held up for pictures,

gasping in the autumn air?

How many times do they

try to take the hook out, leaving

it in as we fall back into

the net, ripping our lips

as they pry off what we

once thought was food.

How many times are we

set back into the river,

gently moved left and right,

so that we gain a little

momentum.? How often

do we not have the language

to say to others what happened,

what’s still happening?

How can we avoid the

hook when we have no

word for it? How can we

explain the pain when we

have no memory?

How can we leave the

river when there is no

word for river, no article

to suggest it is a specific one,

no verb that means “to leave?”

And how will she know,

as she swims among the stones and

dappled riverbed, that

I wrote this for her, that

I too fear being caught, that

I too, know fear is not the word?