The Daily Boost #398
Gone fishin'?
FISHING BEFORE YOU KNOW HOW TO FISH Courtney Martin Through the pines and the one maple I hear her. I shouldn’t have gone fishing if I didn’t know how to fish. I shouldn’t have gone fishing if I didn’t know how to fish. There she stands legs impossibly long pink and black polka dot swimsuit baggy pole in her hands and a little oval sunfish impossibly on her hook. I don’t tell her, but I do think Oh, sweet girl, life is always like that. Fishing before you know how to fish. Leaving before you know how to leave. Speaking before you know how to speak. Fighting before you know how to fight. Loving before you know how to love. Dying before you know how to die. We are all the child with the pole worrying about who we’ve hurt. And we are all the fish on the hook, hoping for mercy. Her aunt hears her muttering prayer and though she hasn’t unhooked a fish in 30 years grabs the wriggling innocent in her hands and dislodges metal from cheek. And this, too, is all of us. Saved again and again by prayer we didn’t know we were saying and a witness we forgot was listening.
(My thanks to the Courtney Martin, via Awakin.org.)
The Gentle Nudge
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Thank you .... this is lovely.
Thank you for this beautiful poem, Phyllis! I love fishing, grew up in a camping and fishing family, remember what it was like to catch that first fish and later what it was like to catch a leopard shark in San Francisco Bay, then release it.