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Poem of the week: Fishing with My Father by Eileen Casey

Eileen Casey. Photograph: Cyril Byrne

Eileen Casey
Sat Jun 9 2018 - 06:00

We set off through the woods
dusk already breathing through the trees
we know their shape and scent. Oak whispers
to oak, ash to ash, guiding our path
towards the lake. A slow wind rises.
Father sings.

His voice is purply coloured. Deep and clotted
like blackcurrant jam and his song fills
all the empty spaces of this late summer's evening.
I hum along with him.

At the shore, I flick my wrist, cast my line
out into rippling waters. As I've been taught
through father's mime. But now it's for real.
A real rod. Real water. Real fish.

Fireflies bat around our heads, midges
stirring near the surface coax brown trout
to the fattening feast.
I listen for sudden splashes, but father
is the first to feel the tell tale tug,
his body rigid as he reels in his wriggling catch.

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Steel hooks glint through the gashed mouth,
rocks on the shore become a makeshift altar.
Father bludgeons his silver prize until
the writhing, at last, ceases.

Coming back through the woods
fish slimes my hands, fills my nostrils.
Darkness spreads like a stain. Drops its black caul
over the lake, across the jagged stones.
Our torches are barely a match for it.

My father again takes up his song
from where he left it in the trees.
I remain silent as we pass through

under the cold eye of the moon.

  • Eileen Casey has published three collections of poetry and a number of chapbooks. She received the Oliver Goldsmith Prize and a Katherine and Patrick Kavanagh Fellowship. She is editor of the forthcoming The Lea-Green Down, a response anthology to the poetry of Patrick Kavanagh, due out this year
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