On Two Medicine River

We waded through thick, live air beneath the cottonwoods Which murmured contentedly, their trunks all warm With sunlight which the leaves invited down. Gnats, midges, and a thousand nameless things Streaked and danced through dusty underbrush. A tolerant lazy rattlesnake Flowed from his coil at sound of our approach Leaving his warm place on the cattle trail. Bill caught his fish-line and was brought up short And we must stop and work the puzzle out— Odd, how deft fingers of the berry bush Can tie things up. Finally breaking for some likely spot Where trout might be, we force our way Into the open, scramble down a bank And stand beside the river on the sandstone Frying-hot; pulling down hats Against the too bright sun. "Flies haven't worked so well; let's try live bait." So grasshoppers are stalked with cautious clumsiness, Deftly slipped over the cruel curve of hooks. A cast out toward the riffles—nothing yet. The bait almost at once is at our feet Tossed aside by swiftly moving water at midstream. Then to cast again till finally The line resists the current’s force And moves upstream or hangs, dead stopped, Across the riffles. "Got a strike!" Then there is careful struggle for a while, A yielding and a drawing in of line Until the rainbow sides draw near, flash bright Just out of reach, then finally come to hand. The victim held exultantly for show, Then pounded fiercely on the rock till dead. The back trail when the biting stops And the pathway is outlined ghostly clear By the last light deserted by the sun. Gnats swarming at the nose and mouth Whining forlornly in the air gone aloof, While the gray trees, tired from revel With the sun all day, stand sagging, And the night-hawk drops from above To disappear mere inches from the earth; The sleepy sound of frogs, deep and sweet, Creeps through the trees far from the water’s edge.