By Louis Cahill
I dream of waking in a forest.
Or where a forest had been, now sooty black. Smoke swirls, orange eyes peer from hunks of coal. Charred trees accuse the sky. White ashes whirl in the air, angels lifted to heaven. I’ve slept through some great conflagration.
I walk, leaving white footprints on blackened ground. Smoke, steals my vision. Trees turn from black to gray, to white. I stop at a river bank where ash becomes grass, high and yellow like autumn. Dark water churns, its surface oily in the soft light. Standing in the river, bare to the waist, my father, his eyes fixed on the water, his hair wet and tossed, his arms outstretched like a cormorant drying its wings. In the current, the dark shapes of fish.
I follow the sound of falling water to a large pool ringed with tall grass. At its center, a deep black pit. The pool flows in on itself, the water pouring over a rocky rim, angry, foaming white. The sound deafening. A gaping bottomless maw, ringed with white foaming teeth, swallows the river and roars at the sky.
***
I think of my father now and see him, not drawn and frail. Not balled and withered, eaten with cancer but a strong young man, shirtless with wild, wet hair. A man from a black and white photograph. The luxury of survival, to carve the past in a form more pleasing.
Standing in an Oregon river, in a run instantly familiar, I swing a fly for steelhead. It’s treacherous. Heavy, chest deep water pounds over slick boulders ending in a gnashing class-four rapid. My dream, borne upon the world.
I place my anchor, sweep and cast into turbid water. I feel the weight of the river as my fly swings close to the rapid. Every step, a dance as the water lifts me in its arms. I belong here.
At home I wander the house like a ghost. Yawning through my days and tossing through my nights. Here, in the river, my hands set to task, under threat of death, I am at peace. No future to fret over, no past to regret. Only the swing, the churning water and the promise of a tug at my line.
Just when I’m sure my fly will disappear over the edge of the maw, it comes. A pull, then a grab. My line cuts the water, my feet struggle. I dance into an eddy behind a boulder. I tail the fish and it’s done. I’ve traveled the continent and he the ocean. Drawn to this place, at this time for reasons neither understand. Each bent to task, each under threat of death.
Two rivers flowed together and now must part. His path upstream, mine down. My destination is certain. The steelhead’s is not. I will sleep in the burning forest. I will wake and join my father. When that time comes will the steelhead run in the river, or only in our dreams?
Louis Cahill Gink & Gasoline www.ginkandgasoline.com hookups@ginkandgasoline.com Sign Up For Our Weekly Newsletter!
I’ve always considered that steelheading might be a Zen experience; borne of the harshness, the monotony, the repetition, the long odds. You’ve confirmed that for me as this prose could only have come from one swept up and away, transported, by the moment. Well done, sir.
Powerful stuff, Louis.
“At home I wander the house like a ghost. Yawning through my days and tossing through my nights. Here, in the river, my hands set to task, under threat of death, I am at peace. No future to fret over, no past to regret. Only the swing, the churning water and the promise of a tug at my line.” WOW. Well said sir. The line above made me choke up! Damn!
Powerful images. Emotions stirred.
That is good stuff right there my friend. Man, Louis, very well dun!
Lovely piece of work here Louis – thoroughly enjoyed (and identified with) it.
Ok. That one needs to be printed in some fashion and sold. I can picture a scene high above a river and way off in the distance you can make out a fly fisherman in the river. And those words are somehow displayed on the picture. Well done!!!
Good one Louis.
I’ve been on hiatus from reading fly fishing related material because it was all sounding the same to me. You’ve rekindled my interest. Thanks for that.
Beautiful prose Louis
Love this. Thanks for reposting recently and pointing me to it. Makes me reminisce of my own deceased father, gone too soon from cancer, who instilled fishing in me
Bien fait.