Troutnut.com Fly Fishing for Trout Home
User Password
or register.
Scientific name search:

> > Another fish poem



MartinlfAugust 11th, 2007, 7:02 pm
Moderator
Palmyra PA

Posts: 3233
For those who found the fish poems entertaining, here's another in its own thread. If you like it, post another, or tell me. I have more:

The Fish

I caught a tremendous fish
and held him beside the boat
half out of water, with my hook
fast in a corner of his mouth.
He didn't fight.
He hadn't fought at all.
He hung a grunting weight,
battered and venerable
and homely. Here and there
his brown skin hung in strips
like ancient wallpaper,
and its pattern of darker brown
was like wallpaper:
shapes like full-blown roses
stained and lost through age.
He was speckled and barnacles,
fine rosettes of lime,
and infested
with tiny white sea-lice,
and underneath two or three
rags of green weed hung down.
While his gills were breathing in
the terrible oxygen
--the frightening gills,
fresh and crisp with blood,
that can cut so badly--
I thought of the coarse white flesh
packed in like feathers,
the big bones and the little bones,
the dramatic reds and blacks
of his shiny entrails,
and the pink swim-bladder
like a big peony.
I looked into his eyes
which were far larger than mine
but shallower, and yellowed,
the irises backed and packed
with tarnished tinfoil
seen through the lenses
of old scratched isinglass.
They shifted a little, but not
to return my stare.
--It was more like the tipping
of an object toward the light.
I admired his sullen face,
the mechanism of his jaw,
and then I saw
that from his lower lip
--if you could call it a lip
grim, wet, and weaponlike,
hung five old pieces of fish-line,
or four and a wire leader
with the swivel still attached,
with all their five big hooks
grown firmly in his mouth.
A green line, frayed at the end
where he broke it, two heavier lines,
and a fine black thread
still crimped from the strain and snap
when it broke and he got away.
Like medals with their ribbons
frayed and wavering,
a five-haired beard of wisdom
trailing from his aching jaw.
I stared and stared
and victory filled up
the little rented boat,
from the pool of bilge
where oil had spread a rainbow
around the rusted engine
to the bailer rusted orange,
the sun-cracked thwarts,
the oarlocks on their strings,
the gunnels--until everything
was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!
And I let the fish go.

Elizabeth Bishop
"He spread them a yard and a half. 'And every one that got away is this big.'"

--Fred Chappell

Quick Reply

You have to be logged in to post on the forum. It's this easy:
Username:          Email:

Password:    Confirm Password:

I am at least 13 years old and agree to the rules.

Related Discussions

TitleRepliesLast Reply
Re: What is it with my biggest trout coming in NOVEMBER??
In the Photography Board by Jmd123
2Nov 22, 2016
by PaulRoberts
Re: FLY FISHING IN PATAGONIA - Story and Pictures of an Epic Trip
In Fishing Reports by Pmack6
1Apr 13, 2016
by Wbranch
Re: Dubbing
In Fly Tying by Flytyerinpa
3Oct 26, 2016
by Flytyerinpa
Re: South Fork Castle Creek
In Fishing Reports by Bioprofsd
2Jul 27, 2011
by Troutnut
Re: First fish of 2011
In Fishing Reports by CaseyP
2Mar 29, 2011
by Jmd123
Re: Pseudo Hackle
In Fly Tying by TomMarkert
4May 11, 2015
by NeoDoc
Re: My newest Painting
In the Photography Board by Softhackle
12Jul 14, 2009
by Ericd
Re: Site's back online!!
In General Discussion by Troutnut
2May 9, 2019
by Jmd123
Re: Love Guarantees
In General Discussion by JAD
4Oct 25, 2011
by Keystoner
Re: Delaware
In by Jesse
2Jun 30, 2011
by JOHNW
Most Recent Posts
Re: large free living caddis rhyacophila?
In the Identify This! Board by Kjfeen (Taxon replied)