The line went out and out and out but it was slowing now and he was making the fish earn each inch of it. Now he got his head up from the wood and out of the slice of fish that his cheek had crushed. Then he was on his knees and then he rose slowly to his feet. He was ceding line but more slowly all the time. He worked back to where he could feel with his foot the coils of line that he could not see. There was plenty of line still and now the fish had to pull the friction of all that new line through the water.
Yes, he thought. And now he has jumped more than a dozen times and filled the sacks along his back with air and he cannot go down deep to die where I cannot bring him up. He will start circling soon and then I must work on him. I wonder what started him so suddenly? Could it have been hunger that made him desperate, or was he frightened by something in the night? Maybe he suddenly felt fear. But he was such a calm, strong fish and he seemed so fearless and so confident. It is strange.
Santiago know fishing. Is confident. The fish Santiago is battling is large and strong. Yet, at this moment, Santiago wonders what has frightened the fish into jumping out of the sea into the night air. Not just once. Many times.
We all face fear. Every day. Some of those fears are tiny, focused mainly on things like the car starting on a cold morning. The furnace dying in the middle of a January night. The dog peeing on the couch. Of course, there a large fears that lurk in the background all the time, as well. Death. Failure. A broken heart. It comes with the territory of being human.
Last night, a huge ice storm blew into my little corner of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. This morning, I woke to a list of cancellations as deep as Santiago's sea. Even the university where I teach cancelled classes.
When I stepped outside in the morning to let my puppy pee, the whole world was sheened in ice, and the wind made the trees crack their knuckles. It's always amazing when you go to bed in one landscape and wake up in another. That happens often during winters in the U. P.
I didn't do anything today. Didn't face any fears. I worked from home, watched episodes of Cash Cab, and ate. That's about it. I hibernated in my house, and I enjoyed every minute of it.
Saint Marty wishes he had more days like this.
And a Lenten poem . . .
by: Martin Achatz
The weather guy, in his ugly tie,
Predicts six to twelve inches tonight,
A spring storm out of Alaska, Canada,
Winds as strong as cattle trains.
Tomorrow, I will wake to this creature,
This force of different fronts from ocean,
Mountain, glacier, tundra. I’ve heard
It said a butterfly’s wings, trembled
On African savannah, causes hurricanes
On the Gulf Coast, another flood
In the Big Easy, wipes out Mardi Gras
For good, an oil slick of jazz
On magnolia, pelican wing, bayou.
I wonder if the collective gasp in Japan
After earthquake and tsunami caused
This early spring snow, set into motion
Winds across the Pacific, bore
That shock and grief through salt,
Through supermoon, mixed it with cries
Of caribou and polar bear, brought
It to me, to my home, snow falling
On roof and car, snow on street, lawn,
Gas station, church steeple, snow
Everywhere, heavy as a thousand souls.
Tonight, when I press my lips to my son’s
Fingers, somewhere on this planet
Rain will start to fall in a desert place,
Filling the land with green life.
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