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Accessible * Useful * Enjoyable Poetry |
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Karen Braucher |
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To become one |
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First, you learn not to ask, "Did you catch anything?" You talk about sea breezes, ocean swells, fish habitats, good boats. You memorize knots, buy foul weather gear, pet dock cats.
You hold fishing rods, practice casts, acquire your own tackle box. You discover how to answer any question with no more than two words. You find your own lake or coastline. You are happy there.
Then, you learn how to wait. You choose the best beer to drink from a bottle, you don’t cry when the fishhook pierces your finger.
You see where in the rocks the big ones hover and which lures work better than the others. You realize when to pay attention to surfaces and when to make certain the bait drags along the bottom.
In the end, you know how to tell a story so unusual that birds gather in trees, frogs greet you at the shore. People crowd to see the splashing water, your movement of the rod, and at the end of your line, the struggling silver.
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Poet Reads Poem |