Flash in the Distance

2/17/2017

This poem was a runner-up in the FISH publishing annual poetry contest for 2016. Thought it would be a good one to put out there just a week before the 2017 FisherPoets Gathering in Astoria. I'll be reading there THREE times. This is on the playlist. Tune in to KMUN Coast Radio at 6:15pm PST to hear me live from the Astoria Event Center. Best Fishes!

Flash in the Distance

I am from gillnetters: from the Skookum Too and Veronika K.
I am boats floating a night sea, circles on the back of a wave.
I am from salmon slime, flake ice, scales and gurry.
I am hissing stick rips, glassy rolling seas,
wild-horse, white-maned wave stampedes.
I am waterhaul and roundhaul, radio fish
and sunken nets; clatters, splashers,
nudgers, jerkers, nothing much
and better get over here now.
I am from beer on the back deck,
baseball caps and rubber boots.
I am from where sunrise ignites the sea,
volcanoes vent over the island,
belugas rise to greet stars.
I am the shuddering slam of the hull,
salt spray on the windows,
needles of rain on my cheeks.
I am a fire in the cabin, a blown fan belt,
oil in the bilge, catching a line from a tender for a tow.
I am a flash in the distance, whitecaps in the rip,
the bow slicing an ocean swell,
foam in my wake.

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Gillnet Dreams
Patrick Dixon

I am a poet and writer of creative non-fiction and fiction. I also edit fisherpoetry for National Fisherman magazine.

More of my work can be seen at www.IntheTote.com, a site I curate that displays the work of the readers at the annual Fisher Poets Gathering in Astoria, Oregon, where I have performed for the past 18 years. I edited Anchored in Deep Water: The FisherPoets Anthology, a seven-book set of writing celebrating the commercial fishing industry, published in August, 2014.

I write on two blogs, From the Field is about photography and the other is about fishing, life on the water, and really, everything else. That would be Gillet Dreams version one, the earlier version of this one, which has lots of past writings.