Poem of the Week
Thanksgiving Day
November 23, 2006
by
Steven D. Schroeder
The lake is a face, hard as its namesake,
pockmarked by rain stingers and pinched
by the wind, which is an angler itself,
flicking my fly back to me at the end
of a monofilament line U and jabbing
barbed hooks into my hands and cheeks.
The scrub-bearded slope across the valley
witnesses my condition unmoved.
My eyes cannot penetrate Flint's surface
through blurry glasses and the deluge,
and my fingers are too chilled to feel
trout strike, but I see beyond mountains
hazy as rainfall on water and sense
this pocket storm sheltering me for now.
Catching what I came for, I breathe
and cast my line again into the lake.
Copyright (c) 2004, Steven D. Schroeder.
Used with the author's permission.