Drought Fishing

Thomas Reiter

Mid-riverbed, below rapids dry as

 the track left by a pencil eraser, 

 I come to a pool that from bank-side 

 glints like the last thin dime 

 the water's down to. I circle it 

 in minutes, and though I can't see 

 the bottom, I find whirligig beetles, 

 a lotus leaf, the skin of a mud snake. 

 My father in the nursing home wakes crying, 

Where am I? Am I still here? 

 I remember how he taught me 

 to fly fish, backcasting so the line 

 unrolled to a soft tautness, then rode 

 on a forearm stroke over the water 

 and reached this far, the deepest pool, 

 where stillness might crumple 

 in a brown trout's feeding rise. 

Where am I? Am I still here? 

 A spring from the aquifer holds out 

 hope that's here for the distance, 

 a pool to leap from 

 to the whole river and its roe and milt. 

 I can reach back for my father from here.