We all start heading down river,
past the two boulders and through the chute,
casting our lines to the deepest pools
and dragging them out across the gravel
like cruising crustacea in flight from smallmouths.
The first fling dangles from a blueberry bush
and comes shooting back across the bow,
another toss is cut short by a timid bail,
but the Rebel finally settles in beyond the shadowed boulder,
arching downstream and tugging into the current.
Such a current, we hope, will last forever,
at least until the roar of Big Quinn Rapids
where the river’s swift flow cools
our anxiety that the float will soon end
with nothing in the basket, or an empty stringer.
We pass by Bear Skull Rock knowing only
that The Ledge and the final standing wave await
to wake us up before the flowage,
where all the flowing stops and where all we hear
are the oars digging their way home.
First published on Canoe & Kayak Magazine’s Facebook page in honor of National
Poetry Day, and subsequently in the author’s chapbook Thuribles from Kelsay Books 2021.
John Fritzell
John Fritzell lives in Appleton, WI, his debut chapbook Thuribles won the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets’ annual chapbook contest in 2022.