Gregg Weatherby

The Zen of Fishing Long Key Bridge

The choreography
of the
fisher folk
                 (what else to call them men
                 women, children, whole families)
some with just a pole some
w/ only line
some
with coolers, tents the
whole nine yards
the overhead cast or
sidearm some
wielded like a bamboo sword
at zazen, others
with only coils of line
making mad mudras
circling hands
to pull up the catch

some move jitterly some
only stand
straight some
lean
this way
or that a few
in posture
almost like prayer
here on the bridge

I fold my hands to
lean on the rail
look south
think of Cuba
this vast stretch of water waves
the whitecaps the
breeze from the north
the bank of birds
awaiting
a taste of opportunity the
fish thrown back or merely
unattended and
the no end line
where blue meets blue
and suddenly understand I
am seconds from satori
                 (kensho coming quietly on the wind)

an old Cubano
sun brown wrinkled
white hair
waving all around
the edge
of an old ball cap

Fishing's good? I ask.
The simultaneous lift of eye mouth shoulder
tip of the head
then
"Okay quiet. You no fish?"
Sometimes, I say.
It's like meditation—I do it to relax.
He looks at me,
Roshi eyebrows almost disappear
beneath the ballcap

Just so.

He is surprised
I think
a gringo
with such insight

Then a look
zen
with a changed face, says
"I do it to eat."

Gregg Weatherby is an itinerant scholar and poet. His first book, Under Orion, was published in 2007. His second, Bone Island, will be released by Finishing Line Press in October 2007. He is an adjunct with the State University of New York and lives in upstate New York.