Spring Scrapbook.

   It is May.
   I am standing next to my father
   in the North Branch of the Au Sable,
   watching him cast with a rhythm and delicacy
   you would expect from a man who loves rivers.
   He parcels out advice with diplomatic restraint,
   talking softly and pausing frequently,
   cautious about spoiling the fishing
   with too many words.
   His voice is gentle, filled
   with a reverence I associate with prayer
   and a quiet enthusiasm I remember
   from stories he read before bed.
   A breeze carries the fresh scent
   of cedar, soil and sun-warmed jack pine,
   a hatch of Brown Drakes flutters on dimpled water,
   and I begin to imagine
   this is what heaven is like:
   an acoustic pacifier of babbles and splashes,
   a broad sky speared with pines,
   and the soft, delicate cover of alder
   beside a trout stream in spring.
   Already I have manipulated this moment into a memory,
   making history of what has not passed.
   It is an old habit,
   a private, melodramatic way
   of savoring a present that cannot last.
   Today will perish,
   but I am comforted by this place
   and by the knowledge
   that nothing remembered is lost.
   I will preserve this landscape in my mind
   like an autumn leaf tucked in a heavy book
   and someday, somewhere
   it will console me
   as the pressed maple leaf cheers the reader.
   This is my spot in time:
   this is where eagles fly,
   where deer gather at dusk
   and Barred owls call.
   This is where I wade in holy water,
   fishing for divinity
   in the fading light of a May afternoon
   and learning the slow, patient ways
   of a man who loves rivers.