Canticle for Native Brook Trout

Todd Davis

                             Now we are all sitting here strangely 

                            On top of the sunlight.

                                               —JAMES WRIGHT 

Fishing the narrow stream 

 of light, we follow a seam 

 between hemlock and sweating 

 rhododendron, tulip poplar 

 and white oak that grow 

 more than a hundred feet tall. 

 The small fish that have been here 

 for thousands of years 

 lay in on flat rock that lines 

 the streambed, or hide beneath 

 the shelves where water 

 pours over fallen trees. 

 They are nearly invisible, 

 backs colored like the stone 

 in the pool where they were born 

 and where they will die 

 after giving birth to their own. 

 The drift of our flies 

 tempts them, and through 

 the glass surface we see 

 their jaws part, predatory 

 surge ending with a struggle 

 to be freed from the end 

 of our lines. Their lives 

 depend upon the coldness 

 of water, upon our desire 

 to touch their bodies, 

 to marvel at the skin 

 along their spines: the tan 

 worm-shaped ovals, 

 the smallest red circles, 

 the splash of yellow 

 and orange that washes 

 around their bellies 

 as we release them 

 and they swim 

 from our grasp 

 back into a sliver 

 of sunlight.