Booker's Point

Old Booker's out there shirtless and knee-deep

in the pond water off his knob of land,

so I J-stroke the Grumman out his way,

across and north toward where his hand-hewn house

hails pondward like the high hull ofa ship.

He wades, with cap, into the yearly work

of easing autumn's muck back from his beach,

and wields his old pine paddle like a wand.

Won't let me help, though, 'til he's taught me how

the job's done right: The wooden paddle skims

the bottom of the pond, so as to raise

rot-ruddy oak leaves, run-off, and dark silt,

and then, fish-swift, he turns the tool edgewise,

a dorsal, and he darts it back to where

the stroke began. Repeats the motions, slow,

and builds momentum, guides it to the deeps,

reveals the precious yellow of the sand.

Now, Booker's drawn unto the burnished, keen

for just what shines in his peripherals

and wont - just like a crow! - to snatch it up.

Last summer, as he cleared his beach, he spied

an amber glow down in the shadows there

beneath his pole-pine dock, and dove for it:

Came back up with a fifth of old Jim Beam,

and nursed the last good sips of that staunch stuff.

Today, his movements stir as if he spun

a cauldron's murky depths with trout-right grace,

economy, a fine fish magic stroked

apace with the bright gleam of his old pine.

We push the paddles through and flick them back,

progress the gold by quick thin flits, return.

We work, together, from the shallows out,

and in good time, we clear up Booker's Point.

Then Look at that! he gasps, and cocks his head

in pleasure toward the sand's new sheen; relieves

me of my paddle, and declares, It's good.

Peers closer yet, and shifts, pulls something up

from foot to fingers, turns it in his hands:

White stone and yellowed mica, quite a shine.

I thought I found a gold mine! Booker crows,

laughs deep, a splash. I'd swear that I found gold!