The bite of morning chill like a blind flash,
the first thrust of his weight connects the brain
with water. A power, flat and deep, unknown
that grips the line and straightens the long arch.
A tightening that cuts into the bone
of something shooting up the neck, poised
for the feel of shiver at the other end -

feeling his tail, the drag of his fins, his running
sideways, a stubborn snout, its surge upwards
against the river-water, hard as rock,
sand-grey, as old as the Alps. A crazy moment -
not of one's happiness - more one of triumph
and fear of loss creeping down my legs,
nothing but instinct telling me my end
of rod from the other at the other end,
wrestling with my pebbled stand, with the sun
surging upwards into the lower ranks of poplar,
resisting day becoming night that rolls
the boulders along the bottom of his realm.

Where each spring and each brook that ever flowed
into this fish, his every pool and pitfall
hate my seeing them: for this is his domain,
his world of strict divisions, split by boundaries
like farms hooked on to opposing slopes
making part of the same hill and woodland,
each at each other's end, both one. He's pulling
at my slope, my meadow, at my lime tree,
the hay-barns in the sun, pulling the ground
from underneath the church I'm holding in
my hands against him stuck in shallows
water willow trees that have gathered
by the will of their old roots into this fish.

Who turns, and turning snaps at hard won years
of boyish wait that are no more a play
of comings and goings, learning the quiet
horrors of disappointment. Of expectations
in the first moment of a grown up man,
in the last moment of the river. All these
I have caught back and will pull out to hammer
with stone and throw onto my shore.
To open up this moment, crush the head,
be free and light again - hooked onto nothing,
just me alone, myself; to leave the river bend,
roll up my line, straighten the arch and my
own reckoning with myself. And watch as he,
gliding an inch beneath the surface, brown
as a trawler, leaves the harbour and sails on
on his dangerous, unfathomable routes,
where there is nothing but all fish and fish.

translated by Alasdair MacKinnon