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"Oh me, look you Master, a fish, a fish ..."
iv
Catch and Release
Now the wild trout comes in, tired out -- in from the roar
and splintering light at the falls past the bend
Just upstream -- in through the glass-smooth stretch here
that travels dark green, clear, noiseless, over a great slab
Of sandstone -- in toward the black shadow and the dank, sweating
stone fragments tumbled to the water's edge
Under the cliff .
He looks transparent as he nears
my hand, the green ridge of his back
Being exactly the green of the water. Fine and icy,
hard to the touch, he waits quietly, gills working,
After a last strong slippery lunge, the mist-bow colors
intimated nicely in the polished steel of his fl ank.
And my Royal Wulff makes a striking rosette
in military scarlet, green of peacock, white, cinnamon,
Against the dark shine of his jowl.
Released now,
he drifts sideways a bit, hesitant, hovering under
The opened fi ngers, next to the fast current. Then bolts,
himself a green smudge above the distinct
Shadow shot downstream, skimming the white bottom sand
in the sunlight then suddenly accelerating
Toward the scant shade of a young alder standing straight
on the far bank, thin-branched, its leaves just opening,
A lyrical green light in them; and, back here now,
on the hands, clean chill scent of trout.