A Cast Of Kings Poem by Jenny Kalahar

There sit or sway these self-crowned Kings of the Rod
Some by day as black flies swarm their baskets
Some by night, when the water seems deeper
Some by night so dark the plunk of bait going down
Is the solitary guiding sound

There sit these kings of trout
These fly-tiers
The Northern travelers, the pond piddlers
The black-booted wading wonders
Rich and poor alike, upstream and down
With fine bamboo or lowly spincaster, their lines nearly crossing
At some pier of mingling humanity

There stand the mounters and the eaters
With faces red as sunset, as lined as ripples on the shore
They all have exaggeratedly-tragic stories
While a few have tales so wild and true
That their shining, wet images float back to them in dreams

There are no women here, where blue bugs grind so thick
Where the grey muck is thick and the yellow weeds sharp
Dread fishwives with their angled elbows are not here complaining
All is wide, clear-sky peaceful as the bait plonks
As old reels hiss and release
Where jealousies are only from wading birds or swooping hawks
Whose cries can not scare away these fishermen
These Kings of the Rod who stand so tall
Who know it all from decades long
Who've tackled bass, pike and salmon wherever they have stood
At sea and stream, pond and lake
Who have scraped silvery scales
And roasted flesh on orange dancing campfires
And who will reign and rule until the day
They're caught by death themselves

One of these Kings may someday be found: a fossil
Lying pressed within ancient limestone layers
His mannish bones sleeping companionably near
The fragile bones of some beloved fish-
A brother fish he will have chosen
To speak with through eternity