Poetry Thursday - Picture this
This week's Poetry Thursday prompt was to take inspiration from an image. I first posted this picture after our vacation in October; I've been thinking about the man in it, and the riverbank on which he sits, for far longer than that.
Fresh water fugue
My father was a fisherman.
The rivers he fished echo through my childhood like a fugue.
Their names are smooth and round in my mouth
like the river rocks I rolled in my hands as a child:
the Yellowstone and the Firehole,
the Snake and the Missouri,
the Big Lost and the Big Wood.
The Madison.
My father was a fisherman.
I grew up bathed in the light of his long love affair
with the waters of the American west.
Trained by an angling eye, I learned to worship
the Yellowstone and the Firehole,
the Snake and the Missouri,
the Big Lost and the Big Wood.
The Madison.
My father was a fisherman.
He lived many miles from the headwaters of his heart
but summer after summer my father fished those rivers
and summer after summer those rivers restored him:
the Yellowstone and the Firehole,
the Snake and the Missouri,
the Big Lost and the Big Wood.
The Madison.
My father was a fisherman.
From him I learned the rhythms of happiness,
rhythms of happiness that flow at the pace of trout streams.
Like a cygnet I imprinted on the river valleys of
the Yellowstone and the Firehole,
the Snake and the Missouri,
the Big Lost and the Big Wood.
The Madison.
My father was a fisherman.
He gave me gifts that glistened like the scales of a brook trout,
gifts I used hard and fierce without thought to value
the way children use gifts, their measure taken only years later:
the Yellowstone and the Firehole,
the Snake and the Missouri,
the Big Lost and the Big Wood.
The Madison.
My father was a fisherman.
And though I have watched the sun rise over the Grand Canyon
and seen it set on the Swiss Alps,
at night when I dream my heart dreams of
the Yellowstone and the Firehole,
the Snake and the Missouri,
the Big Lost and the Big Wood.
The Madison.
For my father was a fisherman.
And perhaps there is river water in my blood
or some gene my father handed down.
Or perhaps it is simply that we shall always love best those things that we loved first:
the Yellowstone and the Firehole,
the Snake and the Missouri,
the Big Lost and the Big Wood.
The Madison.
***
You can read more poems and see the images that inspired them here.
Labels: poetry, the places my heart calls home
8 Comments:
This has an interesting structure, the repetition of large chunks. I like it and have not come across it often before. The subject is obviously dear to your heart and you have carried that across to the reader very well. Good write.
Yes, repeating large chunks is brave. But you pulled it off. I like the last stanza - i completely believe that
I really like the rhythmic, rolling repetitiveness of your poem. But the one word that rings false to me is fugue. The rest of the poem is really earthy and powerfully simple. I would even say it's a celebration of your father and those old rivers. But a fugue I consider cultivated and contrived. Not to mention every time I see the word I hear Bach organ music in minor keys...
Excellent poem. And as someone else has said - brave use of repetition. It worked well without distracting from the tenderness of the poem.
Very nice. I love it along with the picture. Thanks for sharing. It seems very personal.
It reads like a song. Repetition works so well here.
gautami
Soul
Beaman, Jessica, Kimberly and Gautami - thanks for the feedback on the repetition; it didn't look so extreme when I wrote the draft, since I write by hand. When I typed it up I realized what large blocks were repeats and wasn't sure about it.
Un-swiss miss - I was trying to mimic a fugue in the poem's structure; maybe the use of the word in the title and the poem is too much? Yet I confess I'm rather attached to that line: "the rivers he fished echo through the summers of my childhood like a fugue."
Misschrisc - I've been thinking about my parents so much lately. I love that picture of my father from a simpler time.
Nice post, its a Super cool blog that you have here, keep up the good work, will be back.
Warm Regards
The Snake River
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