The Author as Angler

Fishing in the dark - or are we being lured by stories?

Each word begins with a cast into the dark,
The pen casts like a fisher’s hand.
Writing begins where waters ebb
Into the waking dream shores of home.

Writers, lean over a moon-shadowed lake,
The line gently taut, bobbing
Against the numinous, widening ripples
Seeking the shimmer, the tweak on the thread

Then the slow, tender coiling in,
The slack, the surface break, the glimmer in the air,
Lifting the phrase from dripping dream to dusk, glistening, gorgeous,
Rescued from the blackwater of the prayer.

Some rush the draw, snap the link,
And lost, the gleam fins away,
Hurries back to hide in the falls,
A rebel against a greedy harvest.

Some wait for whales that never rise,
Pruning longer spears, dreaming of scales like stars,
Sitting in endless silence, casting into the endless dark,
Empty hands, hoping for the gleaming flank.

Some scoop all that wriggles and tugs and bites,
Every gleam of gold, minnow of meaning, word, thought, tale, twist,
Heaping their catch as tall a whale,
A tribute to the village stalls and children.

But the ones who hem the pools with constant cast,
Comes the knowing that fishing is itself the lure,
We glean that it’s more than eating, hunting, trophies.
Writing is its own wyrd country.

Then we begin to wonder
Who is fishing here?
The writers reeling in the words,
Or the fish summoning the seekers?

Are we those the stories sought?
Are we the ones who cast the line,
Or are we being caught?

And we wonder.