The Holy Order of Fish Handlers

There are those who claim

they can catch the sleek

trout in their bare hands.

My first response to this

was disbelief, but when

I try to imagine it—

I who can barely catch

that lovely and elusive

fish with hook and line

and who have seen them

flash upstream when I

merely scratched an itch—

I imagine something

like a sacred meditation,

a dance of stillness

demanding the non-

attachment of a monk.

To teach oneself to

stand in a cold river

without disrupting it,

to cast no shadow:

is it any different from

learning to levitate, or

mastering that bullfrog-

like chanting that resounds

even underneath the temple?

They talk of calming the fish

by gently stroking

its belly, and I admit,

like a hungry trout

gulled by glint and feather,

I may have been seduced

by a beautiful idea,

but I want to believe

in this, the holy order

of fish handlers, who, to

briefly catch their prey, must

first forget themselves.

—Dallas Crow

"The Holy Order of Fish Handlers" originally appeared in the Fall/Winter 2008 (Vol. 103, #3/4) issue of Poet Lore.