Poetry Monday

Out Fishin'

A feller isn't thinkin' mean,
Out fishin';
His thoughts are mostly good an' clean,
Out fishin'.
He doesn't knock his fellow men,
Or harbor any grudges then;
A feller's at this finest when
Out fishin'.

The rich are comrades to the poor,
Out fishin';
All brothers of a common lure,
Out fishin';
The urchin with the pin an' string
Can chum with millionaire an' king;
Vain pride is a forgotten thing,
Out fishin'.

A feller gits a chance to dream,
Out fishin';
He learns the beauties of a stream,
Out fishin';
An' he can wash his soul in air
That isn't foul with selfish care,
An' relish plain and simple fare,
Out fishin'.

A feller has no time fer hate,
Out fishin';
He isn't eager to be great,
Out fishin'.
He isn't thinkin' thoughts of pelf,
Or goods stacked high upon a shelf,
But he is always just himself,
Out fishin'.

A feller's glad to be a friend,
Out fishin';
A helpin' hand he'll always lend,
Out fishin'.
The brotherhood of rod an' line
An' sky and stream is always fine;
Men come real close to God's design,
Out fishin'.

A feller isn't plotting schemes,
Out fishin';
He's only busy with his dreams,
Out fishin'.
His livery is a coat of tan,
His creed—to do the best he can'
A feller's always mostly man,
Out fishin'.
--by Edgar A. Guest (Favorite Verse of Edgar A. Guest, pg 75)

You can tell I haven't spent much time collecting poetry. Well somewhere I have pieces of poetry and cool sayings that I keep that mean something to me, and that I'd like to have right now. Can't tell you where I put them. I'm so organized I can't find a thing. And matching a poem to a picture is even more challenging.

When I had to clean out my Aunt's apartment after she died, I had brought all of her "garage sale" books home. I found this little book of poetry by Edgar A. Guest among them. All of the things he wrote about were simply and easily relatable, for me anyway. I chose this poem because I miss the mountains, fishing with my husband, the clear mountain air and beautiful streams—the trout and graylings we used to fish for. This mountain stream was taken somewhere in Northwestern Montana's back roads. Couldn't tell you where exactly, we got lost that day. It was one of those spur of the moment afternoon rides that we often took when we first moved there back in 1995. We left town to explore and ended up in the Canadian wilderness. For all I know this could have been a stream in Canada. We left with light jackets, two little bottles of water, and a couple of muffins. We had only planed to drive for an hour or so and go home. We didn't get home until midnight. We had taken a logging road that led us into Canada's wilderness where there is nothing for humans, nowhere! We should have taken a hint that this wasn't a good idea when we passed through a dinky little deserted boarder checkpoint and picked up an obscure little map. About fifteen minutes into Canada we also ran out of a paved road. We had nearly run out of gas when we made it out of the wilderness and onto the main highway leading us back to Montana. I'm grateful to this day that my husband has a great sense of direction. It was a beautiful, breathtaking drive, but we could have been lost forever, eventually becoming bear food... however, we made it out, with a lesson learned. Never take a ride anywhere you've never been without food, water, and blankets. Of course cell phones and GPS would have been even better. We didn't have any of those then.