On the Yahara

"Two boats with nets lying off the sea-beach,
quite still, Ten fishermen waiting–they discover a thick school of mossbonkers–they drop the join'd seine-ends in the water..." – Whitman, "A Paumanok Picture"





Yahara Spring VIII



Winnequah Point, where the Winnebago once slept
in tribes and villages along the shoreline
a fisherman now stands, himself alone, long pole
in hand and shoulders thrust forward from a cast.
His the same motions as the ancient ones,
the same March breeze stings off his knuckles,
he grips then reals-in steady with short hesitations.
And the woman behind holds just as tight to child,
as three fires dot a camp below Starkweather Creek.
Two men paddle their dugout to set nets
over a school of sunnies, dogfish, if lucky a long pike.
The same brother hawk shrieks as it glides
in long circles over the tips of the same trees.