Listen to poem:
Tight Lines
I cast a line on pond to fish.
My lure plops,
and triggers circles to radiate out
as rings of ripples emanating
from the surface deformed, disfigured
by weighted lure on the end of the line.
My line sinks from view,
slack and camouflaged
by transparency.
The pond has no lines of its own,
everything is curved -
lily pads, ripples, bubbles,
and even the shoreline
is all a set of curves;
not a straight line-segment
in sight, anywhere around this pond.
But, I can think like a fish,
I know where fish are at,
where to cast, how to trick fish to bite.
I wait on end of my line,
which is slack and drooped
over a finger, listening.
Ah ha! a nibble, a peck, a bite and the fish is on!
The only line in the pond, suddenly
lifts and twangs;
the fish has taken the bait.
The rod straight and true bends to a curve,
that wiggles with tension as fish tugs and fights.
I haul in the fish, which struggles
mightily on the end of the line.
At last it is done, the fish is bagged.
The line is reeled-in, segmented
in successive curves wound on the reel,
till the line is entirely negated, coiled.
The pond sighs in relief,
happy to be rid of any and all
stray straight lines cast upon it.
The happy fisher heads back
with a fish in his bag, carrying
his rod, lures and gear home
to fish another day
with line and reel.
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