The summer before residency started in Chicago
I went north to Grayling, Michigan with a backpack
And the last of a dreamy eyed sociopathic certainty
To spend a weekend fly fishing on the edges
Of the swift black flat Au Sable river.
I thought I had it all won,
I’d played some cards well
Parlayed a little luck into a tidy stack
That bought me access to higher stakes tables.
I was ready to roll the dice and gamble.
But first, before sitting down with the high rollers
It was off to the swift black Au Sable river
In the summer before the illusions fractured,
Before I realized everything I had
Barely covered the opening ante,
Before my cocky smirk got stuck
Under the tracks of the red line L,
Before getting swept away by big city currents,
Broken down by sleepless midnights
In the old Cook County Hospital
Turkish prison call room,
Before the work of my life began
I sought one mystical experience in nature
So I bought a cheap fly rod and some tackle
With the last of the loan money
Practiced how to cast
In an old ballfield behind the rental in Toledo
Tossed a tent and a sleeping bag in the trunk
And drove straight north on route 23;
A knock off 21st century version of Nick Adams,
The one who hadn’t been broken by war,
Who didn’t know the first thing about fly fishing—
Big two hearted phony
Up in Michigan I stopped at a tackle shop
Bought maps and a couple saran wrapped sandwiches
Took an hour to find the campground
Close to the river and chanced it
By not paying for my campsite
Exploiting the honor system rules
Then I fished for a few hours
In the cold black river which surged
Like an artery pulsing with alien blood
Tangled up my lines on fallen oaks
And got some form of trench foot wading
Through the black muck in old sneakers.
At night I slept in the car
And listened to the Indians-Tigers game.
I never even put up the tent
I never caught a fish.
Drove home early the next day
Capping off an inauspicious outdoorsman debut.
It wouldn't be the first time I play-acted
Through a scene in my own life
Months later the winter melt brought the rapids
That grabbed a hold of my being
And rag-dolled me into the welter
Of hard earned wisdom and crushing mistake
After mistake after mistake with only
Brief expectorations to the surface
Gasping for air that’s half water
Before a swift narrowing in the channels,
Bank-shotting off granite walls,
Slashing in diagonal lightning bolt zags
Ever faster left, then right, then a series of swirls,
Maelstroms of disinterested malice,
Only the words remain inert
Even chaos falls short
Nature or time will have its violent way
They take turns
Resistance is a Charybdis
While resignation only leads to Scylla
The river will carry you along
Its endlessness becomes a notion of time
That will take you from point A to point B
Alpha to omega no matter what
You can act like you're swimming
Or navigating through narrow channels
Charting courses through treacherous waters
But you’re just along for the ride
In a roaring rapids that dies
In the churn and froth
Of waterfall rock
Where the river ceases to be river
Without ever going away
Where water falls without flowing in
Endless loops of incalculably variable patterns
That always look the same from a distance
Locked in place by implacable sheets of slate
But it never reverses, it never can go back
To where it came from.
No longer river
But also not anything else
It’s easy to get cycled through
A series of turbulent vortices
Over and over and over again
Until it spits you out one day
Twenty odd years down the road
Humbled, grayed, pale and trembling
And you're drifting again
Further downstream
In the calm that becomes the thing
That a cataclysm created
Residue of whatever energy is left
Bubbles to the surface
Like the last cries of the recently drowned.
Somehow you’re still alive, witness to it all
And, smooth as steel, the river
Seethes forward through charred forests
Like stacks of mystical black eels
Like thieves fleeing crime scenes.
The roar becomes a dull far away murmur
And the heist a fading memory
That becomes a well told
Tale, embellished but water tight,
That always seems real
As long as you never look back
4/16/23
