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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
SHADOW-CASTING, by JAMES GALVIN Poem Explanation Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: This boy's father dies. / fine. / it always happens. / the boy knows Last Line: This boy, it always happens, doesn’t know what to do anymore Subject(s): Death; Fathers & Sons; Fish & Fishing; Life; Sports; Dead, The; Anglers | |||
This boy's father dies. Fine. It always happens. The boy knows what to do. He goes fishing the same stretch of water he angled with his father all his life till now. The beaver ponds shine like a string of pearls. It isn't easy to fly-cast a mirror- finish. The ponds are silting in. It always happens. They turn into meadows. The stream is choked with sweet-smelling grasses, cottonwoods, and willows. He knows what to do with fifty feet of line out, shadow-casting. The loops flash over his head, electric in the sunlight, as if to illustrate grief, or the hem of a luminous dress in motion. Then the tapered line rifles out, and the lead-wing touches water with no more force than its own tiny weight. The surface breaks. They call them rainbows for a reason. The boy opens his father's clasp-knife to open the fish. As he does this some lint trapped under the blade, like a cottonwood seed from his father's pocket, falls out and parachutes down to the grass, and suddenly this boy, it always happens, doesn't know what to do anymore. Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.cc.press.org | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...JOURNEY INTO THE EYE by DAVID LEHMAN THE GREAT BLACK HERON by DENISE LEVERTOV ISLA MUJERES by WILLIAM MATTHEWS SCHOOLS OF LITTLE FISH by MARVIN BELL TWO PICTURES OF A LEAF by MARVIN BELL OF FISH AND FISHERMEN by JOHN CIARDI A DISCRETE LOVE POEM by JAMES GALVIN |
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