January 25th, 1998 | |||
The Disconnections by John Engels
Excerpt from: Big Water
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When suddenly he took whom I had sought in the endless trolling back and forth off Cape Bianca (froth of bonito boiling at sardines on the quarter, brake and plunge of pelicans, off the bow the huge cloud shadow of the manta, the stony sea shattering on the Santa Helena reefs and then the black fin trailing the rigged balao, the cobalt bill thrusting up from the wake, the line unclipped from the right outrigger, running loose) I waited, and struck into the living shock and weight of sea and sailfish, and at the hookbite the sheer silver of him leaped and leaped, the great fin for an instant billowing with purple light, and then he broke away, the line end writhing far astern, the big rod springing back, whereupon I reeled in and sat stunned, to imagine his stunned and panicked seaward flight, the snapped line snaking at his flank; and remembered what in fact had been too brief in the true light of that afternoon to have recollected with much in the way of faith, except for the usual conviction out of evidence - my hands loosened on the rod, my heart giving way a little, salt crystals grainy on my lips, my wondering how it might have been this time to have brought him flaring and wallowing in iridescences of spray boatside, wide-gilled and azure, shimmering, gaffed him in and lashed him down astern, swathed him in damp sacking against the sun. ~John Engels
John Engels has taught English Literature at St. Michaels's College in Winooski, Vermont for many years. He is the author of five books of poetry, including The Homer Mitchell Place, Vivaldi in Early Fall, and Weather-Fear, for which he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He is recognized as one of America's finest poets. He lives in Burlington, Vermont. |
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