Page Title

Jan Olinger, CPE.

Electrolysis. Hair Removal.

Victoria * 9852-443-2479

Catholic Aid Association

Carol Lindner 952-657-2210

I read a poem called "The Fish" by Elizabeth Bishop and it went like this:

I caught a tremendous fish/ and held him beside the boat/ half out of water, with my hook/ fast in a corner of his mouth./ He didn't fight/ He hadn't fought at all.

He hung a grunting weight,/ battered and venerable/ and homely. Here and there/ his brown skin hung in strips/ like ancient wallpaper,/ and its pattern of darker brown/was like wallpaper;/ shapes like full-blown roses/ stained and lost through age.

He was speckled with barnacle,/ fine rosettes of lime,/ and infested with tiny white sea-lice,/ and underneath two or three/ rags of green weed hung down.

While his gills were breathing in/ the terrible oxygen/ -- the frightening gills,/ fresh and crisp with blood,/ that can cut so badly --/ I thought of the coarse white flesh/ packed in like feathers,/ the big bones and the little bones,/ the dramatic reds and blacks/ of his shiny entrails,/ and the pink swim-bladder/ like a big peony.

I looked into his eyes/ which were far larger than mine/ but shallower, and yellowed,/ the irises backed and packed/ with tarnished tinfoil/ seen through the lenses/ of old scratched isinglass.

They shifted a little, but not/ to return my stare./ --It was more like the tipping/ of an object toward the light.

I admired his sullen face,/ the mechanism of his jaw,/ and then I saw/ that from his lower lip/ -- if you could call it a lip/ grim, wet, and weaponlike,/ hung five old pieces of fish-line,/ or four and a wire leader/ with the swivel still attached,/ with all their five big hooks/ grown firmly in his mouth.

A green line, frayed at the end/ where he broke it, two heavier lines,/ and a fine black thread/ still crimped from the strain and snap/ when it broke and he got away.

Like medals with their ribbons/ frayed and wavering,/ a five-haired beard of wisdom/ trailing from his aching jaw.

I stared and stared/ and victory filled up/ the little rented boat,/ from the pool of bilge/ where oil had spread a rainbow/ around the rusted engine/ to the bailer rusted orange,/ the sun-cracked thwarts,/ the oarlocks on their strings,/ the gunnels--until everything/ was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!

And I let the fish go.

***

And now it's time for me to take a minute to tell you where the fishhook was located in last month's Gazette. It was on page 27 in the hockey kid that was part of Cowboy Tom's story. Among all the entries to this little contest, 'twas the name of Morrie J. Leuthner that I pulled out of the minnow bucket to win the $10 drawing. Morrie is a Victoria based fellow who lives in Excelsior. Congratulations, young man!

I hid another fishhook in this issue of the Gazette. If you spot it, you might want to drop a line telling of its location, then sinker in the mail to P.O. Box 387, Victoria, MN 55386, or use Sue@VictoriaGazette.com. If there's a fish on the hook, you could let it go ... or fry it up for Lent.