scribbler
Mar 22, 2021
This poem is part of the contest:

Seeing things Differently 🏆 Winner

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IN HINDSIGHT (march contest)

Poem Body

The sun is well above the trees
on this late spring day
as we wade in mud near to our knees
in beaver ponds where wild bass play.

A cast made toward a fallen log
brings a swirl but it's a miss
on a bait which imitates a frog.
My brother laughs but it's all bliss.

The water is nearly chest deep
where he hooks on a nice bass
just as a breeze begins to sweep
the surface near some thick saw grass.

My turn next to hook a fish.
I unhook it then throw it back.
silently I make a wish
That for ever we can come back.

--------------

Rude thunder wakes me from the dream
thirty years or so later on.
Some wishes don't come true it seems
as reality arrives with the dawn.

Brother left here long ago
along with youth and strength of limb
while the years and belly grow
and I resent both of them.

I dig out a worn old photo
taken from some plane up high
of those wild ponds so long ago.
I study them and then I sigh.

For this is as close as I will come
to wading in those ponds again
which leaves my wanderlust quite numb.
I miss the strength and my close kin.........

About This Poem

Last Few Words: And those beaver ponds tempt me even yet

Style/Type: Structured: Western

Review Request Intensity: I want the raw truth, feel free to knock me on my back

Editing Stage: Editing - rough draft

About the Author

Region, Country: South Carolina, United States, USA

Favorite Poets: Frost, Burns, Longfellow, Poe, and Johnson. I guess you've noticed these are all past masters. Other than folks on site I don't read any contemporary poets .

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Comments

Michael Anthony

Hi Scribbler! Love the imagery in the first part of this - really great rhythm and structure - beautiful! The realization (for both writer and reader) that it was just a beautiful dream juxtaposed into the reality of waking from it is inspired - well done!

Best

Geezer

You were going to delete it, before I had my chance to tell you that I love your dream and it brought back a memory much like your description? On of my best friends and I just happened upon a big pond of just such as described and spent a fabulous morning there before we were approached by an old farmer who asked what we were doing there? He said he owned the land and no one had fished there for many years. We told him that we were sorry, we didn't know that it was his land and we would leave. He said no need to leave, the only thing he asked; was that we give him one of the fish that we had caught. We told him that we hadn't kept any, and he said that we were welcome to. But we lived pretty far away and no cooler to keep them and didn't want to waste them. So we caught a nice, big one and gave it to him so that he could cook it for him and his brother that couldn't get to the pond because he was sick. We went back the following year, but the farm had been sold and now there were No Trespassing signs all over the place. We didn't stay, but we have good memories of that day! ~ Geez.
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S

are at the head waters of a corps of engineers lake and thus are open to anybody willing to walk there. But in the 5-6 years we fished there we only saw one other person, a grad student checking wood duck boxes. Isn't it strange that those who have owned land for a long time are more generous in sharing it than new owners?

S

I'll never get used to calling you Ted lol. The imagery is easy. I just describe memories most of the time. But you are right about the rhyming. It takes some thought to rhyme and still almost keep a conversational feel

Lavender

Such a moving poem. I agree that we can all relate to memories like these. We know that, at the time, the moments are good, and appreciate them to the fullest. Thanks for the affecting reflection.
Congratulations, again!
L