Fish House

Nov 26 2017

Four inches of ice,

and already the bay

has sprouted its village of shacks.

Like a jigsaw of children's blocks,

a colourful jumble

of sturdy boxes

in roughly finished wood.

Some, crudely hammered.

Others trim, and snug, and measured exactly;

a democracy of huts 
   –  untitled, untaxed   –

squatting on communal ice.

A study in still life.

The small ritual hole

enclosing calm black water.

Bearded men, planted around it.

A tumble-down shack

on its customary patch of lake.

When an auger sparks, and catches.

The grumbling throb

of an idling machine,

the protesting whine

of pulverized ice;

pitch dropping, as carbon steel bites,

winding higher

as the screw breaks free.

Smoke rising

from the thin corroded pipe

that punctuates each roof,

a frugal stove

glowing warmly below.

I imagine the stale air inside,

a blend of men's bodies, wet socks

cheap tobacco

and strong drink.

While outside

pale-bellied fish, scales glinting

lie in sunlit snow,

immaculate white

stained with bright red blood.

Gulls circling, crows squabbling

excited dogs

scrounging for guts.

And anglers, ever hopeful

the fish will bite, the lake stay frozen,

the rustic hut

cozy and warm.

Men, mostly

who come to get away.

And the prize they will bring back home,

steady providers

presenting their catch

to understanding wives.

Triumphant hunters,

doing as ever

men have done.

The lake has frozen, and after drilling a few holes, my neighbour told me it's safe to walk on: he measured 8 inches, and apparently all it needs is 4. (Both of us, apparently, too old to bother with metric!)

A couple of days later, I finally began catching up on my Prairie Home Companion recordings, hours and hours of which I've been saving from the last couple of seasons before Garrison Keillor retired. Keillor has some tried-and true-tropes, and the familiarity of these is one of the great pleasures of his Lake Wobegon stories. And, true to form, the first monologue of my first episode evoked the usual romanticized image of fishing shacks in a northern winter on a Minnesota lake; an image that stuck with me, and for whatever unknowable reason, demanded a poem.

So the 4 inches was a natural starting point. The rest of it: stream of consciousness, as usual. Especially since I've never spent a second in a fish-shack, or run an auger, or hardly fished at all. So I can't vouch for accuracy. And I'm not sure if there's any point to a poem like this. Except that it's fun to write (and, I hope, to read). And maybe gets at a version of manliness that has a certain appeal, despite its essential shallowness; and that has a modicum of truth, despite verging on caricature. But mostly, as the poem says, it's a still life; and since I have absolutely no talent with a brush, affords me the great pleasure of trying to paint with words.