|
For Peggy
There comes a time (maybe it's an age) when all of us reflect on
happenings that marked our passage through the brakes and thickets of
life. Most are conjured up by reverential spirits and are reserved for
times when we happen on the solitude of just ourselves.
A passing mood will bring the
thoughts of loved ones charging back to dominate a few moments of our
time. The reveries are too many to be counted but each one occupies the
space in a dark corner of our mind, waiting for another curtain call. I
love those things when they do that.
Today I pulled a book that
had been long forgotten as my thoughts drifted by enroute to new ideas
to be tried and new experiences to be had. But this volume made me
pause. It's called
Flywater
and is about the great fishing places in the western part of this
country. Several of the wonderful color plates are of places where I
fished as a kid under the tutelage of my father, or where I guided
others for pay when I was but twelve and thirteen.
Those great places, which
were personal secrets to me then, are now busy with the flourish of
fishermen and women who cast a midge or floating cadis upon the same
waters, never knowing I had been there, or even caring yes or no. I
always thought that space was mine alone, and many of the memories there
bred are even now still so personal, that they exclude the intrusion of
strangers. How dare they do that?
But I know that as the
seasons slowly change and the leaves of life fall and are reborn anew,
so do the names of those who wade those waters and chalk the memories
once again, this time for themselves. I hope they feel the reverence
that I once did and now still do.
How special those hours were,
to see the waters deepen into cobalt as the flow slowly bends around a
bank or to see a ripple swirl as a brookie takes an unsuspecting mayfly.
Many others who have loved
these waters before and after me understand that catching fish is not
what it's about. It's the being there in the tranquility and silence of
one's self or within the gentle call of a friend when he hooks a nice
one, or to tell you of the moose and calf that just came out of the
pines to feed upon the water grasses just down stream.
This book will now occupy a
different shelf, closer to my view, for it holds some memories most dear
and makes me know that moments such as those are fleet-of-foot indeed,
and calls to make them all the more. It is well said, that "God
subtracts from the allotted time of man, those hours spent fishing."
And when my tackle box is
closed at last, and the Cadis hatch is gone, I will rest through all of
time and space, pillowed down and scented in, and with a smile that
comes from remembering the special things that brought me to that final
place, many of which were knowing you were there, somewhere, waiting for
me. f
|
