Casting, Shadows and Knots
Two silver spinners clink on slick rocks,
One and the other, they slip in
Under the brush-covered burbling
Of foamy black crystal water.
I stand on the edge--
Down wind down stream down time--
Below my father, strongly calm,
Like a bent-back juniper
Clinging to the steep grassy hills.
I try to imitate his best casts,
But I am impatient, un-obsessed,
I’m just a dabbler,
My net too full of pity and doubt
To fit a rainbow for a brown.
Maybe if I move upstream, ahead of him…
The sun rolls down the canyon’s dark spine,
Casting his shadow closer to my feet,
As mine crawls up the bank and away.
Fishless, I trade my lure for something gold,
Tying it on with an improved clinch,
That knot that seems made
Not for fishing but passing down.
He showed me one day between the water and the clouds
The simplest knot, the one we use every time,
Simply because it cannot break.
Even against the smack of metal and monofilament on rock,
Treading violent water, gasping under stinging spray,
Plastered by fall leaves bleeding in the rush,
This knot he taught me does not break.
One and the other, they slip in
Under the brush-covered burbling
Of foamy black crystal water.
I stand on the edge--
Down wind down stream down time--
Below my father, strongly calm,
Like a bent-back juniper
Clinging to the steep grassy hills.
I try to imitate his best casts,
But I am impatient, un-obsessed,
I’m just a dabbler,
My net too full of pity and doubt
To fit a rainbow for a brown.
Maybe if I move upstream, ahead of him…
The sun rolls down the canyon’s dark spine,
Casting his shadow closer to my feet,
As mine crawls up the bank and away.
Fishless, I trade my lure for something gold,
Tying it on with an improved clinch,
That knot that seems made
Not for fishing but passing down.
He showed me one day between the water and the clouds
The simplest knot, the one we use every time,
Simply because it cannot break.
Even against the smack of metal and monofilament on rock,
Treading violent water, gasping under stinging spray,
Plastered by fall leaves bleeding in the rush,
This knot he taught me does not break.
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Mark Smeltzer is a senior undergraduate student at Utah State University where he studies creative writing, and plans on continuing that path into graduate school. He is also a reader for Sink Hollow literary journal. Besides reading and writing, Mark enjoys fly fishing, sipping coffee, and watching movies with his wife, Chelsea.
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