by daithe’

Windswept Lake Eden:
A daguerreotype,
their figures outlined
in black against snow-blinding whiteness
and glassy etched ice.
Hunched over, leaning toward
the ever-gaping augered hole,
they sit upon their cooler,
a perfect pair.
Notice how Joseph,
freckle-faced and wide-eyed,
takes in Roy’s instructions–
how to hold the jig;
how to bob the line;
how to attach minnows,
or disattach perch eyes, for bait,
with the flick of a thumb.

Then, when to twitch the jig
or how to tend to the tip-up
when its flag flips high,
surrendering its orange nylon wing
to the hungry eyes of the fishermen,
like a raven plummeting and tumbling
against a piercing wind.

But most of all,
what it means to huddle and confer,
against the wintry slopes of time.

2025 Corrine Eastman Davis Memorial Award – Honorable Mention
Published in the 2025 Mountain Troubadour