Poem

One Last Alaska Fishing Trip

I too am silent before the waters.

beneath the sky, where some sophist moon

passes into loveliness. I am nameless, too,

while rare permits me where few have gone,
a milky blue glacial path, with a hint of brine.

While the glistening thumbnail fades,

the river invites me like crystal teal pebbles,
of lost familial memories to a depth mirroring

those zen peaks, those shivered ravines.

Ripped from the glass of the lake.

Chinook Salmon, Pacific Halibut,

Rainbow Trout, ride on the silver tides

of Kenai, of Kasilof, of Caines Head. Deep

in the blue facades of their longing, they 

never return to the gleam, never, 

never to return to the gleam.

And so it is that beneath this sea,
Arctic Grayling, and King Salmon whirl

a silverstrobe red rave mixing purple, deep

sapphire with See Run Dolly Varden, as

each one calls me to cull the rope.