While the earth sleeps, we
wanderers will come awaken to scatter over the sands of the shore, seeking to
consort with the ancient silences of night.
Individually, aligning ourselves a part of littoral locales held dear to
heart, or simply fortuitous by nature, for that ceremonious slice of time
shaped intimately when our own living amalgam of liquid and salt draws nearest
to the rhythmic cadence of a saltwater hiss lulling like an enchanting siren from
the ever-falling wave collapsing upon the interest of our feet.
And even more so, for that
purposeful realization, that instant both abrupt and unmistakable, when a tugging
connection is suddenly confessed from below the rippled surface of a vast
undersea-world’s inky-colored secrecy. Perhaps
only twenty-five yards out, but out of eyesight’s detectable range, fountains
of splashes are heard escaping from the inescapable blanket of darkness your
dilated pupils have grown dark-adapted.
Beyond the mute black band of an encroaching wave are November’s singing
stripes of color, those ribboned in black over iridescent silver and green,
piercing the water’s movements of silence with resounding scales of her signature score.
Orchestrated are her percussive, sweet-sounding surface-thrashes of tail,
plucking at the watery life-element being thrust upward into night’s cathedral reaches. The
emotional rush of the measure. The
watery-music’s cast-spell of concentration and uncontrollable
horripilation. The unwilling compromise
of surrender between man and fish. This
engaging performance of the evening, a large fish’s raining opus of striking-strain
and swirl of surface, builds towards crescendo before suddenly submitting in
nighttime melody to an intensifying bow of graphite aching to silence all further
scaly-sounds.
Ferried by way of wave to sand, is
the impassioned fish below inspired angler.
He offers his best standing ovation.
