Mouthfish Mystic

By Michael H. Kew

{For Dan}

upon shivering pale pastel dawn cigarette-butt Monday dirt

at weaving Winchuck sunrise in sharp downstream airs

in mossy string-hanging redwood seams

seemingly where here, yes! there meets our kindred woolsocked feet

we understand this

firm warm handshake & camouflaged coffeeteeth

thy toes they may numb

early blue eyes always atwinkle with promises of raw aching ocean

praises to mothers of trillions

considering mazes to droopy black plucking arcs

or to flat hard white glassbarks

here again, camouflaged wader legs & slick black rubber kneeboots

there again, heavy damp Australian wetsuit & ancient Californian waxbar

baldhead & beard & tidy old fishpole & gnashed tackle stashed deep in the red borrowed stinky Luke jeep

look down & kick

frigid clean dawn asphalt

ick!

the cold dry northeast wind it blows

the river a funnel

gentle sky bluey-gray flecked with cotton candies of our chiseled lives

and as always we chase the low pressures & we trail the window-whistle rhymes of autumn

those coastal crossing points

and this is yet but one of your long havens

wood plains east west north south dirt water sober hangover

your battered green Toyota truck once bleeding from open-minded naked comic relief

once swinging dead lingcods in the St. Patrick's day dusk

once lone ranches of first dips

now!

we cannot give to nature what nature gives to us

still!

we squint red-eyed into the ruffled new waters & the littoral pebblesands

of our mindful mutual sanctuary

rich in gull shits

smooth dingleberry rocks

rough absurd abused tranquil gray logs

all while the Kalmiopsis spits its unknowing timber traffic into our early earholes

deaf to the shark-scared seals & lions

as you later revealed upon beers in Brookings

hither hither

fall chinook salmon, Coho salmon, winter steelhead

you said—

you man-threatened species

you said—

they avoid your humble hopeful barb

so let us praise the wet gears

the core of atmospheric rivers

the confluent cycles of currents

the forty-six thousand drainage acres

because

LO!

the jewel rainriver at last has slit our old dormant foot-stepped summer beach

before & after i howled like a fool at huge ridgetop winds & gray rainsmokes rushing through the tall firs

and my dormant rhododendrons & gleeful gray madrones & catnip

deep early December voices that indeed sucked sorrow from solitude

lunatic ecstasies engaged in grayblaze glasscreaking gustery

and so you hook nothing

new normal

because, after all, happiness rides in the scorching yellow room beneath spindrifts

you knowingly will step through the scattered orphanwood coffins

o dan, you have been here before

intimate seasonings

forefather of respect

thank you for your inspirations

together we serenade this axis

blessed bees

so see you again at the seariver shore

mother will decide

and smiles we will provide

again

in waves

again

—Hermitage Purplēdeneye, December 2, 2019

Plucked from Nectars of Sky, available globally via Amazon.

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Winchuck River

Dan

{main image courtesy Native Fish Society.}