Father Thomas
If you sit in the first row,
There’s something in his eyes,
His manner of speaking, like
Uncle Sean, who’d say,
After each trip north,
Oh, you should have seen it.
Clear water, cold as ice,
And not another man for miles,
Just you and the fish,
Bigger than any you’ll ever see.
Sure, he brought some back,
Packed in ice, scales dull,
Gold becoming orange, silver
Turning to grey, ready to be
Stripped, gutted, and eaten.
But the look in his eyes
When he told the story
Of the one that got away,
Snapped the line, disappeared
A silver fish in a silver stream,
That’s what you remember now,
Looking up at Father Thomas,
Clutching the sides of the pulpit
Like he might, at any moment,
Be washed away.
