The Healing Power of Water

A fat 14-inch trout fresh from the sea.

Also Known As Heaven Creek

There is almost nothing electrician's tape and Maxima leader can't fix. See this creekside eyeglass repair.  Notice the fine craftsmanship and precision work.  Maybe when I retire I will open a fishing tackle/eyeglass repair shop.

Andy Goldsworthy's film Rivers and Tides inspired this Howling Banshee.  Maybe thousands of lifetimes ago, he started this way.

Turkey Vulture Serenade

That's what I'm talking about!

I had to get in one more float trip before I return to teaching.  My justification was to save a caddis larva I found in the raft bag in the back of my car. I caught cutthroat from 8 to 14 inches.

This summer I did Blame and Denial Therapy.  I am getting good at blaming others for my troubles, even strangers who have nothing to do with what happened.  Denial Therapy is harder since it goes against my nature as a poet, but I have been watching how Western Civilization does it.

One of my students, mimicking Bart Simpson, said, "I didn't do it. Nobody saw me do it. You can't prove anything."

"Son," I replied, "you are destined for the U. S. Congress."

Unhatched Caddis

struggling in the raft bag
in the back of my car
required an 8 hour drive
back to her native river.

I was accused of doing it
on purpose
so I could go fishing
but it was because

I too had been taken
from my home
of ancient evergreens
and swift pure waters.

For years I have watched them
hatch and rise
like tiny wish-granting fairies
landing on my arm.

On our long drive
she sat by me in a blueberry
Nancy's yogurt cup
and I kept the music low

so as not to hurt
her caddis ears
which had maybe
already been injured

when my landlord said,
"Does Scott know
the carbon footprint
to save that bug?"

At the river
caddis crawled away
in her stone tower
and lived happily ever after,

maybe the only one
of her kind
in 10,000 years
to be that crazy-lucky.