Catching a Lure

Catching a Lure

Countless strokes of overlapping
fish-scales, silver-lacquered,
polished to a high shine;
on the dowel grasped between
his index finger and thumb
become a lure he'll use to catch
a large fish which he'll then throw back.

Maybe he doesn't even believe
in camouflage, yet it is his practice
taking the place of more conformist passions.
Devoted to planer, slipstone, emery.
I must tell him about Sisyphus at sixty,

single-minded at a similar task,
the same inner fog forming
through which we push, against
growing weakness.  When the scales fall
you're able to see what you are, what was won
and lost, what you've done with your time.

If you see a flash of brilliance underwater
you're communion with that.  Like rolling
a boulder uphill, over and over
you repeat the process.  And who needs
a boulder on top of a hill, as my dad
used to say.  But Dad, too, loved threading

one more wooden butterfly
onto a butterfly mobile, another sun-catcher
using self-taught skills as does his grandson
carving, shaping, and placing
a gouge along the length of the dowel
adding a touch of the authentic.

Author: Marilyn E. Johnston

Photo credit: Anne Nygård on Unsplash