I love the days when I wake up slowly
I pull back the shade to find the sun
And I feel the urge to roam tugging at me
I don’t have to pack or get myself ready
Everything I need to survive for a few days
Is already in the truck just waiting for me
The gas tank is full, the air crisp and cold
It’s just one of those perfect fall Colorado days
And I’m reminded in a not so subtle manner
That this is why I left my home of almost 50yrs
And moved 1000 miles away from all of it.
To be here. To see this. To follow the wind.
My mom passed away on Mother’s Day in 2023
As painful as that was, as much as I miss her
She took with her the anchor that held me
Captive and yearning, that kept me
resisting the pull of this amazing place
The place I fell in love with fifteen years ago
It was my respite from the crippling pain
I was being swallowed whole by after the
Death of my first wife. It was home before it
Was home. I knew the first time I saw the gorge
Of Gunnison, and the river flowing through it
That one day I would live here, and never leave.
I think about my mother a lot these days
As I wind my way over cottonwood pass
The rugged beauty of the mountain tops
The thinness of the air as my breathing changes
Fluttering now and then; to remind me that
This world and its power can take me
Anytime it wants to. That I’m here by its mercy
She would have loved this place. The snow,
The elk, the deer, the yellow aspens turning red
I wish I could tell her all about it. Every detail.
And sometimes I’m haunted by the fact that
I never told her I was leaving Mississippi
Even though I know she would have understood
Why I left, though she would have forgotten minutes later
At that stage of her life, her mind was failing
Almost as quickly as her body. Then she was gone.
I probably drive close to 50k miles a year
From one end of this state to the other,
sometimes alone, sometimes with Gia,
Sometimes with GusGus my protector
I’ve planted my feet in almost all the rivers
The ones I read about for years, the ones
Known around the world for both their beauty
As well as the epic brown and rainbow trout
The cut bows, the cutthroats, the brookies
The green back cutthroats on special days
I love them all, the raging rivers and the fish
I’ve spent my days on The South Platte River
I’ve spent nights in The Taylor chasing dinosaurs
I must admit I’ve lost far more battles
Than I could ever win, and both are beautiful
Those were my dreams, all of those hot days
Sitting in a boat in Mississippi damn near dying
In so many more ways than one. “One day”
I always said to myself, a mixture of words and tears
I fell in love with fly fishing as a small child
Watching my father at Billy Walton’s farm pond
Slinging a popper at bream beds methodically
The occasional largemouth exploding on the surface
He never really taught me; I learned by watching
Now and then he would tell me what he was
Doing, and why. Mostly I just watched in awe
It was like watching poetry being written
Or a painting being panted only it was just
A rod, some line, a fly, and physics
I couldn’t have been more than 9 or 10 when
I tried it myself the first time. I was not good
At all, but I felt like I was conquering the world
My fly fishing was put on the shelf mostly
By the time I turned 15 and discovered things
Like girls, and whiskey, and morphine derivatives
Dad got sicker and the time I spent on the water
Dwindled down to almost nothing, but I knew
The water was always there waiting for me
The water never judged me, or lectured me
It never spoke to me in condescending tones
It never took anything from me, it only gave
It gave me precious time, hours when I didn’t
Have to think about my father dying, or the dope,
Or the long list of failures and mistakes I was
Steadily creating. It was my respite from all of that
I’ve never looked at the water in terms of what I could take from it.
It’s always been what it is willing to give to me
and I’d like to think that sometimes I even give something back
I was 35 the first time I chased trout on fly
We weren’t poor growing up, but we didn’t
have much to spare either. chasing trout
Out west during spring break wasn’t an option
For me, as a blue collar kid in Mississippi.
I learned to chase trout in the thick woods
Of western North Carolina and East Tennessee
Right now I’m watching those areas fight for their lives
and for once it isn’t at the hands of men
Nature brewed up a hurricane for the ages
Rearranging those rivers into places I barely recognize
as I look at the harrowing photos people are posting
in a selfish way my heart breaks for myself
that’s where I learned, it was my first church.
it’s a different world, trout fishing.
There’s more intellect involved in the way of science
and book knowledge, and insects, insects, insects…
The first trout I caught was a wild brown trout
Probably 14 inches long. I wasn’t impressed.
Come to find out years later that was not
A fish to be ignored. For that region, that was a
large wild brown trout. I guess what I’m saying
Is that it wasn’t the fishing that grabbed me
and never let go, although I do love catching fish.
I was captured by the game and by the hunt
Creeping through heavy forest along tiny little
Streams; fish that spook at the sound of a
Branch breaking underneath your foot
Silent, stealthy crawling. A different kind of
“Technical” fly fishing. Bow and arrow casts,
Roll casts over and under the trees crowding
the banks of crystal clear Carolina streams.
It brought back the innocent child in me.
Something that had been gone a long, long time
Amidst of a level of grief I didn’t even
know existed, fishing for my life in so
many ways, and I came back to life.
I haven’t stopped chasing trout since.
For me it’s about my soul, and my sobriety
Because make no mistake my soul and
my sobriety rest at the altar of the river
Without it I would be dead from the grief
Or the needle, or both. It’s my church
I’ve spent my time chasing the trout of a lifetime
And while I still chase that toddler sized trout
I find myself circling back to my roots
These days I seem to be called to the wilderness
And though I’m 50 now, and full of aches and pains,
there’s something about watching a tiny little
Brook trout rise and take my fly
That makes all those pains disappear completely
During that moment nothing else exists in my world
Just me and God, as I understand him now.
The smell of the leaves and the trees…
The sound and the hollow feel of my
carefully placed steps on the forest floor…
The leaves singing in hues of yellows and reds
As the wind whistles through the hollars
Not another man in sight.
Now and then, when I’m lucky
I hear the sound of an eagles call
Mixed into the sound of the river,
steady and as old as time.
This is why I choose to spend the days of
my life here. The river washes away the secrets
Of my past and the fears of my future.
And I know, as long as I am here, I am safe.
The river gives everything
The river takes nothing.
No Rhymes or Reasons: where freeform poetry meets literary snobbery 