I'd like to read another poem about fishing too.
This is an irreverent poem but I can never resist reading it.
Two friends of mine and I used to go fishing in Canada.
And this one particular time we were out
and we had left our life preservers on the shore.
None of us could swim and this terrible storm came up.
And we were caught out in the middle of the lake
and trying to get back and we were in really great peril.
And one of us began laughing, I can't remember which one.
And it became very infectious and we were just all
breaking up laughing while we were
in this great, great danger.
One of these wild times.
And this is not exactly a poem about that particular instance
a meditation on that business.
It's called "Entering the Storm, Unable to Swim,
Zimmer, Rollo, and Cecil Are Saved."
"The storm mixed and fell upon the lake and chins first
we rammed its wall.
While one man bailed out the water and another work
the motor, I held the lantern high and howled
at the pinewood shore.
Only the fish we had caught could swim
and they revived in the slosh of our hull.
The storm hooked my cheeks and beat my voice back.
It swallowed up my light.
It rose faster than our buckets and washed our motor out.
Our fish began to swim and we began to sink.
We despaired.
We cursed fish, water, storm, and world.
We defied nine planets in the cosmos.
Then a great voice said, rub a dub, dub.
Behold our boat rose, our water drained in the storm uncapped
and split above our heads.
Our fish suffered in the hull again
and we sailed off believing, believing."
[LAUGHTER]
Thank you.