An Ode to My Father

Upriver Days
©

With hair slicked back, straight as a pin,
you'd lean into the wind and steer that boat
SLAM! BAM! over waves almost flipping me
into the mud-brown Abitibi.

Half-faced hillocks whose sands sullied the river,
scant beaches, bush breaks logger-made in the northern scrub
slowly slide by as we head upriver,
Johnson-farted fumes trailing in our wake.

We'd bounce the Lobstick's rapids before reaching
The Spot
then fish for hours on hot, still days
as Red Sucker Creek sluggishly bled into the Abitibi.

And once, I remember...
As soon as you'd take a fish off my line,
re-hook a minnow, and
settle back with your own rod,
I'd catch another and the cycle would begin again.
God, it was fun. But who'd believe my catch?

I'd pee over the side of the boat - precariously perched.
You'd kindly look the other way, light a cigarette
to give this modest little kid
a modicum of privacy.
It hardly interrupted our fishing.

Going home at night, shiv'ring in the cold and dark,
we'd strain to spot the lights of the dam
that signalled Mom and home and warmth and bed.

Watching your knife, so sharp, honed thin,
fillet flesh from bone,
the smell of scales and guts and roe
-- enough to make you puke!
I'd gamely package the entrails and carry
the stinky, newspapered mess outside.
I wish I'd learned your technique.

Those were upriver days when a kid and her Dad
would face wet, wind and wild,
scatter ducks,
feed mosquitos,
and come home with pike.