"Dawn Revisited" by Rita Dove

Morning Fire, Riverside Campground, Henry's Fork, August 2011

Imagine you wake up

with a second chance: The blue jay

hawks his pretty wares

and the oak still stands, spreading

glorious shade. If you don’t look back,

the future never happens.

How good to rise in sunlight,

in the prodigal smell of biscuits --

eggs and sausage on the grill.

The whole sky is yours

to write on, blown open

to a blank page. Come on,

shake a leg! You’ll never know

who’s down there, frying those eggs,

if you don’t get up and see.

"Dawn Revisited" by Rita Dove from On the Bus with Rosa Parks. © Norton, 2000.

Family Post: Celebrating a Family

I'm back. I flew out Tuesday before dawn and flew back Friday night. This time I left my computer at home, so was incommunicado as far as the blog was concerned.

I met my brothers in Kansas City and drove with them through the Flint Hills to where my parents live. My sister would fly in later in the day.

There were hawks on almost every perch, flocks of singing meadow larks, and skeins of geese winding and unwinding overhead.

During our visit my brothers and I had time to take in some of the sights in the area. We drove up to Lindsborg, a Swedish heritage community, so my brother Pete could pick up a gift for his Swedish wife.

We went to the Cosmosphere in Hutchinson.

It's the home of many exhibits documenting the rise of our space program, including an SR 71 Blackbird spy plane and a full-size space shuttle mockup...

A lunar lander...

And the actual Apollo 13 capsule.

We even strolled through a Bass Pro Shop on our way back to Kansas City on Friday.

The real purpose of the visit, though, was to celebrate my Mother's 90th birthday on Thursday. My Dad is 91, so both parents are now nonagenarians.

It was a bittersweet experience. When we sat around the table in the assisted living facility where they live, we were the whole family together again.

But we were keenly aware of the family members who were not there. There would be seven children, and now only four of us remain. (The top three in this photo, and the baby on our sister's lap.) And we wondered if we would ever all be together again.

That is the way of things, and of families. Looking through old albums in our parents' room we were able to put our own time and loss in perspective. Looking at old photos like this one of our Great-grandfather Jeroby, on the left, we were reminded again that each of us in the family comes and goes, but the family lives on. And we live on in our family.

So we celebrated a birthday, and we celebrated a family. Happy birthday, Mother.

"Out on the Flats" by Leonard Nathan

For Matt, on his birthday.

1961 - 2004

Out on the flats, a heron still

as a hieroglyph carved

on the soft gray face of morning.

You asked, when I seemed far away,

what it meant but were gone

when I turned to you with an answer.

Nothing mysterious—hunger,

a taste for salt tides,

distance, and a gift of flight.

"Out on the Flats" by Leonard Nathan, from The Potato Eaters. © Orchises Press, 1998.

Brothers

Brothers. What are you going to do? My younger brother Pete saw my comments about John in the last post and picked right up on it. He has been known to bait the two of us around the campfire, trying his best to get an argument going. And his best is pretty good.

In this photo Pete took on a trip to the Grande Ronde a few years ago John and I are obviously getting along rather well.

But in an adjoining dialogue in the email in which he sent the photo Pete picks up on the negative yet again. Still baiting. And he throws in brother Mark for good measure:

John speaking: "Jim, I've got to say I'm a bit disappointed. I tell you exactly what to do to catch fish, and then you go out there and do whatever the hell you want to."

 

Jim's response: "Did you see that woman fly fisher this afternoon? Nearly as sweet as Miss Wyoming. Or was it Miss Montana? Anyway, she looked at me."

 

Mark's response: "I saw her. She wanted to do me right there. I'm not kidding."

 

Pete's response: "Hand me another beer."

I have to hand it to Pete. In a few brief lines he pretty much nails it.

There are some factual errors, however. It was "Miss Missouri," named such by me in subsequent reminiscence because she was beautiful, and she told me she was from Missouri. When she talked to me. While we stood out in the Henry's Fork on a peaceful August evening. First time on the Fork. First time fly fishing. Looking at me with her big eyes. Asking about her fly--"do you think this will work?" Wondering about her casting stroke--"How am I doing? Like this...?"

So I said, "Wait here. I'll go get my brother John. He knows a lot more than I do."

The actual Miss Missouri Pool, the Henry's Fork

So. Where was I?

Oh yeah. Brothers. What are you going to do?

Give thanks for them every day. Love them. And go fishing with them every chance you get.

Trout Lake Report: Remembering Mark

I've been fishing. Life goes on, and for me fishing is a part of life.

It was for Mark, too, until he got too sick to do it. He had diabetes and he was an alcoholic, a deadly combination that finally caught up with him.

He moved out here two years ago after going through toxic shock and being on life support for three days. I hoped we could get things turned around. But a year after coming here he went into shock again. I found him in time to get him to a hospital, but once again he was on life support for three days. Doctors were advising us to make end-of-life decisions when Mark woke up, pulled the breathing tube out, and recovered.

How many times can you go through that? After that we got him set up in a place where someone could keep track of his meds and keep an eye on him to make sure it didn't happen a third time.

That lasted about two months. Mark had a cowboy streak in him, and he decided he didn't want anyone watching over him. He wanted his freedom, come what may, which by then meant freedom to drink. So he got himself kicked out--no drinking allowed there--and moved into an apartment in another town twenty miles away. Where he could be alone.

And that's how he died. Alone. There was finally a systems fail that even he couldn't come back from. But that's how he wanted it. He might say that he lived his life to the end on his own terms, diabetes be damned. And that might be the only thing he finally felt he had any control over.

_________________________________

I went fishing the Saturday after we got back from our trip. Mark was already dead, but nobody knew it yet. It was a hot evening. On the way in, there was a bull snake crossing the road.

As I geared up at the lake, tiger swallowtails were flitting from bloom to bloom.

The lake was quiet.

I tried everything I could think of, but the fish wouldn't come to the fly.

I finally stopped taking photos and concentrated on the fishing. The last time I hadn't caught a fish at Trout Lake was sometime in 2011, and I wanted to see the streak continue.

But it wasn't to be. Something ended. It was time to start over.

After dark I trolled back to the take out, and then took one more loop hoping for a last minute catch. It didn't come, but something else did. A light came over my right shoulder, a brilliant silver meteor. It drifted down slowly almost to the ridge top and then broke up in orange sparks.

The bright trail of its passing remained in my vision well after the darkness had returned. 

___________________________

I heard of Mark's death on Sunday evening. Monday was spent at the funeral home, at the police station, and at Mark's apartment. Monday evening I went back to the lake.

It was calm and beautiful, and there were fish.

I had lots to think about as the shadows moved up the mountain.

I thought about all the places here Mark and I had been able to fish, including Trout Lake. He was there only once, but I was glad that I could feel his presence through those memories.

At dusk I headed back across to the truck. One more fish came to the muddler as I drifted it behind me.

I beached the float tube and stood up. That's when I heard it. One loon calling, one loon somewhere over there in the darkness of that remote bay beneath that mountain. It called three times, that long, mournful wail that goes right to the heart of you.

Then silence.

I hadn't heard a loon call at Trout Lake for a long time. I've been back since that night, and I haven't heard it since.