background image
39
Tired, I took my last
Good trout, at a bend
In dark blue shadow,
Under a rock ledge;
How then I rested
In some tall grasses,
How they hissed loudly
With the gusty wind
While I on the ground
Lay in still air; how
I thought of sleep, slept;
And woke in changed light,
Glare and shadow strange
On the water -- late
Afternoon now! How
Fishing back upstream,
Seeing the water
From the other way --
Alien -- chilled me;
How in my fatigue
I went by riffl
es
I'd have fi shed, before;
How in that estranged
New-shining water
I caught two more trout,
And, leaving them cleaned
On a streamside rock,
Turning back found one
Moved -- then saw the snake
That moved it, his jaw-