Jigging Through Ice

In my Circle of Men a couple weeks ago we talked about our fathers. We brought
pictures, talked about what kind of a man our father is (was). (Mine’s been gone for over
thirty years.) I was reminded of a poem I wrote about ten years ago, recollecting then my
childhood.

God, my father did so much with me when I was a kid. And I’m only really appreciating
that now. Yes, he was busy, was gone a lot, was too stern, quick to anger, and smashed all
the dining room chairs. But he never hurt me. Always loved me.

We used to build kites from scratch and fly them. And fish. We loved to fish. I’ve got to
say it seemed to take me a long time to get the hang of fishing. It seemed everyone caught
fish around me and I only reeled in bare hooks. I was the one making feeble excuses like:
“It wasn’t a bite, just the wind.” or “My line got all tangled.” or “The old fishing pole just
doesn’t work.” or “My worm was too small.” or “My worm was dead!”

We went ice fishing, too. Not the kind of ice fishing with little heated huts dragged out
onto the ice. We were in the open, sitting on upside down pails until our toes were blue,
freezing our asses off. Sometimes they’d bite, sometimes not. This is a poem about my
father and me. The fish were biting!

One day I was just driving along and I happened to look down at my hand in my lap. My
hands are my father’s hands.

Jigging Through Ice

Look down.

Those are your father’s hands you see.
The swelling at the knuckles,
the backs chapped and rough,
red from the day you caught twenty-one
perch and he caught only nineteen.
Jigging through the ice,
neither willing to admit
that he was cold,
wanted to go home:
you, to boast of more fish--
he, to make feeble excuses for fewer,
all the while saying with his eyes
how he had waited
for this day!