James A McCann Wallace River Memorial

August 23, 2008

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Melissa  McCann's Wallace River Eulogy

First of all, I would like to thank all of you for coming to pay your respects to my father today. It is here that we lay the final piece of his soul to rest, and get the closure we all need.

Fishing was my dad's favorite hobby, and whatever time he didn't spend working, he spent fishing. He told me it was his escape. To immerse himself in nature, and just block away the stress and worries of the twenty first century for at least a while. Sometimes I could see it. Sitting in his boat, holding a rod in one hand, a coke in the other (or a beer in his case), with nothing but the smooth flow of the river and the autumn leaves all around us.

So today, we put him to rest here at one of his favorite fishing holes. This place where he truly found peace. Now my dad will be at one with the river he loved so much.

I'm going to recite a poem that seems to fit today's occasion.

 

Steelhead Fishing Under Diving Stars

This morning in the black we toe-tap dumbly
and wade by touch. The River
moves constant against our legs,
gravity tugging it south then west.
Out of sudden eddies, salmon explode.
The moon and hers hover over the day,
and under all these blinking eyes of the dead
I might remember to fish our morning
as carefully as a deer hiding in her own stillness.

At the horizon, the light is still dim.
Breaking the tick, tickety, tick of split lead
bouncing behind the whirling fly just
off the bottom, the rod jerks hard twice
then bows like a hilltop to the east.

The steelhead breaks downstream
and I am lost with the fish
my feet moving over rocks,
through shallows as if I'm water.
A solid pull, the head swing,
a short run, line whining
off the reel and I'm lifted
from the gravel bottom when
he blows through the water
and into the morning,
silver, catching the moon
in his cupped tail,
spoon-head swinging,
and every scale
throwing light,
glowing backward
toward the water
like a diving star
so bright he might glow
or steam when he lands
splashing, sending the river breaking
like glass, splintering into a mist.

But when he comes down, it's all black
and the line in one last whip pulls and goes limp.
The rod is straight as an alder limb in summer.
I stand in the dark sweating, the roar of water
in my ears, the stars wheeling above
toward the west, darker now, farther on.
The river lights faintly, my hands tremble
with the fluttering leaves on the bank,
my feet planted firmly in the stone bottom.

 

Jeff Knorr

 

 

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Last modified: 08/25/08