I Know This Place

Home Waters

I know this place

I know every rock

Every cut bank, every sunken log

Every deep run, hidden pocket, and back eddy

Every tree

I know this place

Strangely, I think, it’s beginning to know me

Maybe even tolerate me

Though it didn’t always

I know every rock

And there’s an eternity of them here

All with stories

Only a handful of them mine

I tripped over that one

Dunked real good

And that one

And one over there

Ass over teakettle, my Grandma would say

She’d be half-right

You get used to such tumbles in this place

Home Waters

Wade a direct line

Root ball to quartz-streaked boulder

And you’ll reach the drop without floating your hat

But don’t stray

Or you will

Float your hat

I know

I know every rock

That one arrived in the flood of ‘09

That big one

Out of nowhere

The place showed its strength

Showed who’s boss

As if I didn’t already know

Though mankind usually doesn’t

Forget that pool

There’ll be no fish there

It looks good

Looks “fishy”

But they’re never there

And there’s no understanding why

They just aren’t

I know this place

I know every rock

I sat on that one and watched the dawning of my second half-century

Thought deep thoughts

Only to have them wash away with the darkness

Deep thoughts lost in deep waters

Where they belong

Perhaps that’s when this place began to know me

Maybe even tolerate me

When I sat and shared my thoughts

Shared my dreams

My life

Giving more than taking

As I should with all those I love

But don’t quite enough

Why am I better here?

I know this place

I know every rock

I know this place

Mike Sepelak

Author - In general, Mike does only what he wants to these days, courtesy of an early retirement and his unbelievably tolerant (and, of course, quite lovely) wife, Mary. That usually means puttering around his small slice of wooded southern heaven, following his fly rod from North Carolina’s Appalachians to it’s inter-coastal waterways, and trying to capture small pieces of these joyful times with his pen and his camera. His efforts are happily shared at Mike’s Gone Fishin’… Again.

Oh, and working in the garden with Mary. Did I mention that she was quite lovely?