Three Poems

 

Brook Trout

Like the kingfisher

I turn fish into flesh.

These brook trout,

resting on ferns 

in the bottom of my 

creel. Bright gold stars

on blue, they mirror 

night sky. Cast iron,

oil, firelight. High water

dreams until morning.

 

Morning

Upstream is some mystery

with just a dash of hope.

Knee deep in flowing water

I wait for something good

to happen. I think of home

old friends around a table

elbows nearly touching.

Wild rice, rich cheese, and bad

weather. If I were wiser I could

decipher the language of water,

of insects hanging in air,

the taste is what fills us,

as if in flight.

 

At Breakfast

The sun this morning

calls to a small bird

bouncing from limb to limb.

Reminding me

there is a part of all of us

that is god. A fragment

of us in northern lights

streaming down the sky

at dark, a silence forever.

The dandelion impresses

the deep blue heavens.

A connection with our relatives,

our tribe, rushing through

undergrowth celebrating

the true grace of dying

as well as possible. One

breath, then later, another,

then no breath at all. Extinguished.

A cure before any symptom

a relapse of desire unattended,

a single infinity that equals, 

all.

…………………

 

Contributor

Larry Gavin is the author of five books of poetry. For fifteen years he worked as a senior editor at Midwest Fly Fishing magazine where he wrote about the challenges facing cold water fisheries. A southern Minnesotan, he fishes the Root River and its tributaries year-round.