So cold I’m sure I’d piss snowflakes
before my plumbing froze.
So cold the guides on my Lamiglass
freeze between casts, forcing me
to dip the rod in the warmer river
to melt them clear
for another futile cast and drift
from the quick head of the riffle
down through the slow fan of the tail-out.
So in-fucking-credibly cold
that under the latest-miracle-fabric thermals,
layers of wool,
and insulated waders with thick socks,
I’m shivering like a chipmunk shitting marbles–
so close to total loss of motor control
I finally open to the obvious:
For what possible reason
am I risking hypothermia, frostbite, and further
brain damage
if not to hook a sea-run rainbow trout,
albeit one so numbed by icy water
it would be like snagging a sand-packed boot?
I can imagine many fine and sufficiently crazy answers,
but the truth is I don’t know.
The more philosophical might suggest
perhaps I’m really fishing
for the real reason I fish,
but that’s too many mirrors and French intellectuals
for me to survive short of twisted.
But if reason exists this side of insanity,
I suspect it’s simple and deep:
faith refreshed through flowing water;
the opalescent cascade of trout mating;
the way my heart flies open
when a sea-bright rainbow
slashes into a downstream run;
the salt-minted shimmer of divinity as it leaps.