fishing in january

i thought back to a day when i might've fished
in the rivers of montana in january
i think i had never done it
but we made the plan to go so we went
but ran some town errands
and took care of some problems
i locked the keys in my car
triple AAA is a good thing
we drove north and i listened
as my friend spoke of professinal woe
on his cell phone it was cloudy but sun was
going to shine i could see up to the pass
the continental divide that an elliptical blue hole
was emerging over the peaks to the west
and fishing we went
the dog a labradoodle was in the back
a few hours later he swam into my line and snagged a
huge draped wooly bugger on his leg
he was patient as i pulled the hook
it was windy like it is often windy
down the canyons in the high mountains
and i wasn't actually dressed very well for the outing
but i resolved to fish the bank find the open places for casting
and let the wetflies roll along the rocky bottom
as best i could
casting was hard
and i caught nothing
i looked at the ribbed ridges
where rivulets begin and i watched the dog
romp with reckless abandon through the trees
along the railroad tracks in the water
geeses and duckses flew about casting shadows
and honking and quacking
the drive through wolf creek canyon is amazing
the colors the rocks and the formations
are mesmerizing
and the light plays off the walls of
red and beige and grey granite
but i caught nothing
and i don't care i swung my arm in the air
at a few moments i was forced to concentrate on tieing a fly on
my tippet or releasing a tree snag or a strand of grass
from the shallows
but i was in ecstacy nonetheless
i was elated i was high i was enmeshed
in the wild and wilful fingers of mother nature
and i trudged through brush and wore
countless burrs on my sweater when all was said and done
as many as the dog (tucker) wore on his coat
the wind whipped into my nostrils and were i not
so delirious with delight i would've had a headache
it was so crisp and clean and cool
later i sat at the bar in my brothers' house
and ate nachos
and later still i listened to irish music
and watched as young ladies jigged for all they were worth
and then i ate a tangerine sorbet cone
and actually did contract a slight headache
for my zealousness for the gelato was
a bit excessive
i watched television for the first time in ages
and enjoyed nothing as the night grew on
so much as south park
i slept soundly later on

there will never be another day
quite like yesterday
so much happening
i can hardly keep up

geography and knowing

the streets
i know them
i coursed along them countless times
on bicycle
then car
here i learned to drive

the buildings i know
they are the same
new people new business
but the buildings do not change

names emerge from a life long ago
from laughter and work of days gone by
neighbors are the same

history swells up from the gulch
still the booming sound of a city being born
one could choose to write a history
based on crime

a church looms high
steeples hold the eye
there i knew confirmation

this is my town
this the place where i seized upon
the social moves and attitudes
where imperatives like cattle prods
i only thought i knew
are lingering to remind me now

still the weather breaks over the divide
not just the melting water
to this or that drainage

all the characters are the same
the actors have merely changed
the play of desperation and security
worked out in the daily news
or in the silent torment of a human heart

this is my town
i do not have to think about the names of streets
i know the map the layout the landscape
and thus to a degree
i know myself

alas we all belong to where we learned to think
to love to fight to search and to fish
some of flesh and blood are always there

life is a play of slowmoving slowchanging sameness
memory thrives in a template of maps and architecture
and thus we know

on the 12th day of christmas

Motherless through all the years,
Fatherless upon the earth,
God before the world began
As man you came to birth.

Though your father is so old
He is but one age with you,
And your mother but a child,
Older she, but younger too.

Only mother of my God,
Open wide the stable door,
And let me as the ox may do
The master of the skies adore.

I'll be his servant here below,
And watch for him by night by day,
And from the infant chieftain's side
Turn the herdboy's dogs away.

I'll wash his poor and ragged clothes,
And while I dry them in the sun,
O Mary, if you let me I
Will wrap him warmly in my own.

--circa. 1580

Fr. Hugh MacCawell
Archbishop of Armagh, Ireland