From the top of Temple Ridge
to the South Fork of the Gualala
it’s all downhill,
the first half-mile so steep
I wouldn’t have time for a decent scream
before splattering against
one of the redwoods whose tops loom below,
a remnant stand of old-growth
the terrain has spared from logging.
Praying it will spare me too,
I descend
carefully, carefully, feet
planted sideways,
waving my rod case for balance
like some moronic progeny
of Izaak Walton and a Flying Wallenda,
work my way, stab and dig,
down and then some into Devil’s Hole,
utterly certain which orifice
inspired the gorge’s name,
just as certain there must be an easier way;
down till the slope finally relents,
relatively gentles
as I pass through the trees,
their vibrant new-growth glossy in the early light,
then down easy
and across the alluvial terrace meadow
clotted with sun-cups, poppies, blue-eyed grass,
purple blooms of wild iris
lurid as a pornographer’s sense of romance;
down to the river.
Sneakers and Levi’s,
I wade right in, flicking
a Gold-ribbed Hare’s Ear I tied myself
to the riffle above the pool,
following it as it sinks,
bellies with the flow,
drifts . . .
my mind drifting beyond it,
downstream where the durable curve of water
has undercut an azalea-shaded bank,
and I’m trying to imagine what swoon of fragrance
might be loosed
from the light-drenched flowers
when the sun touches them about three hours from now,
and wondering whether it would be wise to wait
or better just to imagine and move on,
so when the trout strikes I miss it by five minutes,
and despite a dozen delicate, dedicated casts,
damned if I can bring him again.
No matter. It’s a magnificent morning,
three miles of river to my climb-out at the bridge,
and if that azalea cut-bank isn’t a lunker’s dream home
I don’t know diddly about fishing
and should give it up on the spot–
chuck my rod in this emerald pool
and devote myself hereafter
to scholarly articles on Norwegian grammar,
lavishing on the future-conditional tense
passion now reserved for luring fish into the present.
When I turn to wade the rocky shallows
back to better footing on the gravelly river-bar,
a nervous frog I hadn’t noticed at my feet
decides this dawdling critter
may be as clumsy as he is lost
and so for dear life leaps–
a flat-out half-yard sprawling flop
that stuns him a floating moment
before he jackknifes, ass in air, and dives,
digs down till his belly scrapes bottom,
then kicks away rhythmically through the clear shallows,
puffs of stirred-up silt, evenly spaced, billowing
in his wake.
And watching those milky silica clouds
bloom and disperse,
swirl and settle,
a force summoned by the footloose glory of the day,
something wild within me,
something I like to think of as poetry
presses for release,
and I say aloud to hear it myself,
“So this is what my life has come to:
a fierce sweetness in the river light;
delirious fusion of petal and flesh,
plunge and glide.”
Thus lost in exaltation, mindlessly
I step on an algae-slimed rock,
hang in baffled contemplation
of my sky-framed sneakers dripping on my face,
then smack ass
into the cold, marrow-shriveling water.
“Yarrrrrggggggggaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!”
Yes. Yes by everything holy, yes!
Even better.