Cicada Season
A short poem about fishing from March 2021.
Here’s something short for you to enjoy before my weekly dispatch on Friday.
They say the cicadas are coming back to Tennessee this spring. The last time they were here, the fish were ravenous, and the catch was bountiful—even for me, an amateur on the carp fishing circuit.
As Brood X will not re-emerge until 2038, we’ll have to settle for Brood XIX. With work, the kids, and unpredictable weather through Knoxville’s first false spring, it’s unlikely I’ll go trout fishing much before my annual June trip with my fly-tying crew. But if the cicada do arrive next month, I am eager to head back out with Sensei Jonathan, the master of redneck flats fishing (and organizer of that epic Arkansas trip from my book), and stalk the brown-water bonefish of Fort Loudon as we did that glorious March of 2021.
Carpin’
Through the flats,
we search through polarized sunglasses
for the finned, crownless pineapple.
At last—there!
I see its mustachioed lip!Â
It slurps the phony fly;
I count one Mississippi
then set the hook.
Fish on!
I shout to my companions,
who cheer as I wrestle
the carp into the net.
Relieved,
I smile and exhale,
then raise my prize
to heaven.
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