Ocean Grove beach. By Paul Goldfinger © Click to enlarge.
Hi Paul:
Greetings again from Manhattan. In late summer, I like to visit Ocean Grove and watch the surf casters, with their long rods and spinning reels, working on the shore, usually alone, hurling their lures far into the dark Atlantic, and then waiting patiently for the bluefish, striped bass, or other gift the ocean might offer up. Here is a poem, “The Surf Caster,” from my collection, Father of Water.
Best wishes,
Charles Pierre
Charles Pierre. 2009. Photo by Marcella Kerr
The Surf Caster
The fine line that keeps him connected to the depths
runs long into the night, a translucent filament
of strength through the dark and turbulent surf.
How quietly it flows from shore to ocean floor,
from his practiced wrist along the flexing rod,
as each tug of the tide, each questioning nibble
and answering jig, pulses through the eye loops
down to the spooling reel. He probes the ocean
with a lure of his own devising, charm and hook
tooled not for local fish but the far-swimming schools.
A slight vibration and his line now sparkles
with wetness in the glow of phosphor water,
humming in the summer wind, radiating a soft mist,
a sign of something below, something other than
the common catch, something only he would know.
BILL FRISELL “Across the Universe.” From the album “All We Are Saying” (2011)
