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Our boat is first to slice
The green snake skin of Clam Lake
This Saturday morning in May

Heading east to the mouth of Grass River
Where angry Pike still hunt from shallows
Before the Milfoil grows to summer impossible

My son at the wheel
His long hair a wake of curls behind his engine grin

Fishing poles battering the back of the boat
Like drum sticks rim-shotting our improvised wind

The boy recently told me
He had a hard time understanding
Why his good years should be wasted
On school and work

“Leave that for the bad years.” He said
“When time doesn’t matter so much
And the good times are done.
I think we’ve got everything reversed.
I won’t need that much.”

We pass a checkerboard of black and brown cows
Squared on a sunlit board of grass
A meadow mooing
For the next big move by a studying sky
Leaning on its cotton elbows

We slick-skid to a stop at our favorite spot.

Here, we barely breathe
Silhouettes casting our splashes of jewelry
To the neck of our reflections.

A yodeling Loon guards its raft-nest next to us
And a swan flies from the river
Returning to its mate and Cygnets
Wings beating like brooms
Against the lingering fog of hanging sheets

Commotion

The Loon and swans
Bawl and yawp slapping the water
Their babies scatter

A Bald Eagle
With the tips of its flapping wings
Bending like human wrists
Mimicking the mimickers on how to fly

Soars from nowhere at lake level eye
Talons ripping the surface
Misses its prey

Ascends a hill
With a glance back from its great white head
Disappears.

“Did you see that!” “Lucky.” “Depends on your perspective.”

A Pike hits my Rapala
Dives down to the bottom like a cut-loose anchor
Very exciting!
As my wrists and shoulders bend and struggle

“You work so hard, dad, get it!”

Wish the fish had hit my son’s offering
Instead

My son grabs the net laughing

We land the razor-toothed fish, he’s big
And my son works hard
To untangle the creature the blood and its lure
From the soaking knot of lacework

Says, “Hold that Pike up I’ll take a picture!”

“No time” I say “It’s hurt.
Let’s get it back to water.”

So my boy revives the fish
Aside the boat by its slimy tail
Gently pushing and pulling filling its gills with water

Takes awhile

We wait and see
Then the fish flinches and fans its fins
Slipping like a ring from my boy’s hand

Released

Back to the blueberry dream of its day.
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