seekingthecurious's blog: "Poems I Have Written"

Gone Fishing

A young man once asked a fisherman can you teach me how to fish?
Said the man, "Why, yes I can, if that is what you wish."
He set the boy to digging, after every storm
and told him "Come back and see me, when you've found the
perfect worm.

After weeks of shoveling, and blisters on his hand
he still had not found one cause he didn't understand.
He wasn't searching for a worm, or some other piscine dish,
but learning to be patient; you need that when you fish.

He came back to the jetty with a full bait pail,
and set it down at the mans feet as he began to wail.
The fisher glanced down at his feet and said "I guess this
will do. Get yourself a rod from the shed, and bring one
for me too."

The man waited patiently to see the ones he chose and asked
him quite intensely, "What made you pick out those?"
The young man answered testily, "I want to catch big fish,
so I got the largest ones I found, to help me with my
wish."

"It's not about the size of pole, or quantity of bait,
it's about your patience and how long you sit and wait.
You see son, fishings much like dating, it can be done all
wrong. Sometimes you just have to wait before the right one
comes along.

Unless you have a great big boat from which you can go
trolling, just drop your line into the brine, and continue with your lolling.
That's the end of the lesson, at least until much later.
Come back and see me sometime, when you're a better sit-and-waiter."

For weeks the young man searched about for the perfect
bait, thinking the whole entire time "I REFUSE to wait!"
Grubs and worms were gathered in, and anything else he
found. In his over-frenzied search he turned a lot of ground.
He dove into reading about every kind of fishing
And practised with a rod and reel, and kept a fly a-
swishing

One day he finished learning and stood up from his rock, to
go looking for the fisherman out on his favorite dock.
Sure enough there he was with his familiar pole
the boy went stalking out to usurp his teaching role.

As he walked up to the man he started to rehearse,
everything he had read chapter, page and verse.
As he went on about the fishes and their favourite diet,
the fisherman just sat and fished and wished that he'd be
quiet.

When the boy was finally done and he had ceased to speak,
the fisher turned himself around and gave his nose a tweak.
"So you think you've learned everything about worms and
fish and bugs? Pull up a stool and have a try."  The boy complies and shrugs.

He pulled out every trick he had learned from what others had been writing,
but no matter what he tried the fish just were not biting.
He tried grubs and snails and rare Brazilian skinks;
maggots, salmon eggs, and every bait that stinks.
He finally shook his head and spoke, "That's everything I
had and not a nibble did I get, what say you, grandad?

The fisher looked at him and winked, said "You need to
learn some more. Just remember there's a fine line between
a fisherman, and an idiot on the shore. I told you once,
now this is twice: come back and see me later. And next
time don't bring along your voice, you little master baiter."


 Third times the charm he thought, as he showed up on the dock
and sat down to wait the fisherman, on his favorite rock.
Two hours passed, and still he hadn't shown
the  boy just sat and waited there, on the jetty all alone.

A passerby just shook his and said "Old Jed is gone. Reeled
in by the greatest Fisher, been a week since he passed on.
He told me if I saw you, did my old pal Jed,
that he left you all the fishing gear that was in his shed."

While the boy was trying cope with the fisher being dead,
his unheeding footsteps took him to the shed.
His hands sought out a bamboo pole and a bobber made of
cork, and baited a worm upon the hook before his mind began to work.

His sensibilities came to him with a little splash,
of sinker hitting water and the leaders flash.
He sat there contemplating Jed until the dawning light.
And as he sat there silently, the fish began to bite.

A lesson learned too late is still a lesson learned,
for Jed had taught the boy exactly that for which he yearned.
The fisherman is gone, no more for worldly strife,
but where he used to sit and fish, there's a new one, such is life.

Please note that poems I post may have been posted by me on another site.  If you see any other people posting my poetry, please let me know. :)