"THE WATER"
- Posted on
- By MP
Worth the read. "The Water" by Ugly Bugs own, Orrin Jackson.
"The Water"
by Orrin Jackson
Tender wing-beats disturb the surface of the creek.
It winds through the trees and past the snowcapped peaks.
Carving a new landscape with every second flowing.
The elk and deer will drink and the trees always growing.
Six legs sprawled upon the water keeping him afloat.
Unaware of hungry eyes, watching below.
Before his wings can find the strength to get him in the air,
A cutthroat rises quickly, he’s swallowed without care.
He’s sipped up in an instant like his other winged companions.
Life emerges from the water here, just like all the other canyons.
The mayfly feeds the cutty while the osprey stares above.
The finned buffet below will surely nourish all her young.
Upstream the grass is tender and it feeds the bighorn ram.
The willows once upon the banks make up the beavers dam.
The beaver pond creates a shelter, a place for fish to go.
It’s used to spawn their fingerlings and escape the rivers flow.
The moose will eat its lilies and maybe take a swim.
A black bear eats the berries that grow along its rim.
I observe from the bank here, fishing rod in hand.
The water not only shapes it, but provides for all the land.
Rain, sleet, snow, or hail, it all has its own job.
No moisture is ever wasted here, not even the dew and fog.
I cast my Adam’s dry fly and quickly mend the line.
It drifts past a big black rock and through the buffet line.
Like the mayfly once before it, it’s sipped up and I set.
I fight him by the fallen tree and right into my net.
I ponder at the beauty but quickly give release.
I return him to the water, once again he’ll live and breathe.
