There
are those found inspired by nightfall’s surge of darkness that suddenly
swallows all failing shades and shadows of daylight. The
rock-hoppers. The fence climbers. The skishing wet-suiters. The wader-clad. All those who motion and daydream throughout
light of day, but live to mobilize
during this magic hour of metamorphosis. This reactive catalyst they know as
sunset. That spilling span of time when
the covert cadres grow stirred by incitement for the holding sea’s most coveted
fortune dressed of fins. For Sax, the preeminent inshore piscatorial
portrait of perfection, whose very migratory manifestations brave as the swimming
envy of their every neglected exchange of nocturnal retrieve and prelude of sudden,
striking anticipation.
The
rod-wielding advantaged arrive all points framed of seawater to disappear from
sight, save a headlamp’s faraway blink of light unmasking perfect strangers
standing with the night. Fellow-fishers
honoring homage at the forefront of their chosen sandy alters. Their sanctuaries of giving generosity that
with flooding tides, are blanketed by the cover of lapping waters inundating the
fringes of surf-carved slopes. There, entrenched
amongst the rhythmic chorus of gravel and stones churning and sands seething,
they wait for just one brief encounter when the Atlantic’s divine-denizen may
be momentarily revealed from such underwater expanses of her briny extremities to
lay deathly still upon the terra firma fraction of a foreign world pierced of
starlight and Orion overseeing all high above.
They imagine the scaly sight of her gleaming green glamor to again fall
reflected upon the gaze of their hungered, hunting eyes. These envisions all the same that thousands
upon thousands exert so many countless hours of in-pursuit, only
for those so few glorious seconds borne as hovering witness. Sax,
their shining trophy. A mount suitable
for the mantle of memory.
So each
does what he knows best. He casts. He casts, again. And yet, again. He casts such that triumph may again saturate his eyes in scaly accents of oceanic-going
lavender atop those thick shoulders shimmering of a glittering gold. He wets line for those seven black, laterally-running
stripes segmenting a broad viridescent body’s gradient of moss-green washing
away to white. He wades closer towards a
haunting memory luring to ensure that only the most crazed and afflicted remain
awake for through all hours and minutes of an autumn or winter night. Wading and waiting for that one, preferred
incident of tidal rendezvous. He
accepts, as an adamant angler in a state of sleep-deprived stupor, that he may
languish in withering-away, suddenly seeing double-vision of the graphite
accomplice held before him, knowing full-well there exists no chance of hooking
a double-header, but casts again, to only try. He reties, for the glory of reliving a moment
that was lived yesteryear. For the next
cast made that will fall closer in closing sigma’s statistically-probable,
enuring curve of time, before enduring the next startling tug. He switches colors, for the hope of seeing
the inconceivable. For the surprise and
thrill of surfacing a new personal-best.
He readies himself for the shaking-satisfaction of lying her wet, long broad
body onto sand, while making visual contact of her golden-colored iris rotating
towards his own, as a skinny rush of bubbling water passes around her
alabaster-colored belly, only to stall upon the beach slope and then retreat to
sea. To photograph the Atlantic’s prized
daughter, pulled aground upon dark and hard-packed, smoothened sand.
It’s the
picture of such a moment thus captured in his mind, raised of his hands and
hoisted ashore by hook, which keeps him reeling in the night. The torpedo-shaped portrait, embodied of time
and tide, slice of moon and ceiling of cloud, buffet of bait and blow of wind,
water of chilling and luck of locating, is ultimately, where this collision of sea
will have confessed her best-held secrets unto sand. As Sax.
As a sculptured snap-shot freeze-framed
in his mind forever. As a streamlined
benefit tail-slapping the glass-smooth, saturated sands of a beach. All, for pursuit of recreation. All, in the name of chasing picture-perfect dreams
worthy of re-creation.
