Port Charles 15^th May 2010. 3.00pm last hour of the incoming tide.

I cast straight for the Barrier

Into a ripping nor’easter.

The trace drops clean

Three squidded flasher-hooks streaking for the fish behind a tank-busting sinker.

Aaah, Yes.

Away on the lee shore three little boats point stoutly into the wind

Like mechanical cows on a pasture of a green

So utterly not that of the emerald paddocks framing the bay

Luminous between the soft greys and blues of a scud-clouded sky

And the burnished green of that vast paddock of oceanic combers

Running with wind and tide

Spent from their long roll from who knows where

Like godwits from China

Almost asleep

Shrunk to knee-height

But ever beautiful, holding their swing and keeping time to the end.

Finally they stream across black diamond lava reefs

Bubble down through those giant peninsula pebbles

And sough to nothingness.

What stories they might hold

Never to be told.

Not a bite. Not a nibble.

Aaah, Yes.

I carry a small piece of treasure

To take out and look at from time to time

And marvel at and be grateful.

This is one of these moments.

What is it?

It is the knowledge that I am a saved man.

So recently a wreck, a hulk

Not so much rejected as abjected

Left in a sewer of alcohol and stupefactants

Dumbly sinking out of sight

All of my own bitter accord

Now transformed as if overnight to my original design and specifications

Restored in a trice

And cracking along under full sail before a sweet breeze with a nice bump in it.

Deo Gratias.

Now, I really wouldn’t mind a nibble.

Oh well. No dice.

Aaaah, yes.

Three nights later the full moon rises over the far ridge

Framing in silhouette a great pine tree.

Its light spreads a carpet of sparkling yellow tourmalines right to my feet.

Full moon, no fish. Common knowledge.

Purely as homage I cast straight into the jeweled sea.

Within minutes I land a fat trevally

A meal for me alone, gift from this surprise moon, never before seen.

For the first time in my long life,  in place of that old sailing ship calling me away, always away

I see the beaming happy face of the storybook moon.

It says “You’re home. Stay. Be happy.”

So I am happy, happy as a storybook moon.