Loch Lomond

For my Father

You were struck first

by the trees, how they came

to the very edge of the water,

and how, in certain shallow inlets,

the top branches of madrone

broke through the surface of the lake.

We followed the shoreline fishing.

Loose beads of lead weights

rolled from one side of the boat

to the other, bouncing as we

shifted ourselves gracelessly

from seat to seat. The wind,

wrinkling the water like a sheet

of paper, kept us cool and dry.

We said little. The thin air,

the worried hum of the electric motor

seemed to silence us, limit

our speech to reflections on lures,

casts, the inscrutable nature of fish.

What we wanted to say escaped us,

moved ceaselessly away like ripples

from the boat which seemed

to lose its buoyancy as the day went on.

I felt we were sinking. When the light

began to fail I turned the boat

into the wind, back toward the dock.

We made slow headway. The shore

changed imperceptibly as we edged past.

We caught nothing that afternoon, we forgot

what we had meant to say. But our

lost thoughts came back to us,

and filled us, the way the lake fills

with rainwater and runoff;

murky at first, it settles, collects,

and reveals a clarity that reaches