I have never been fishing on the Susquehanna <br />or on any river for that matter <br />to be perfectly honest. <br /> <br />Not in July or any month <br />have I had the pleasure -- if it is a pleasure -- <br />of fishing on the Susquehanna. <br /> <br />I am more likely to be found <br />in a quiet room like this one -- <br />a painting of a woman on the wall, <br /> <br />a bowl of tangerines on the table -- <br />trying to manufacture the sensation <br />of fishing on the Susquehanna. <br /> <br />There is little doubt <br />that others have been fishing <br />on the Susquehanna, <br /> <br />rowing upstream in a wooden boat, <br />sliding the oars under the water <br />then raising them to drip in the light. <br /> <br />But the nearest I have ever come to <br />fishing on the Susquehanna <br />was one afternoon in a museum in Philadelphia, <br /> <br />when I balanced a little egg of time <br />in front of a painting <br />in which that river curled around a bend <br /> <br />under a blue cloud-ruffled sky, <br />dense trees along the banks, <br />and a fellow with a red bandana <br /> <br />sitting in a small, green <br />flat-bottom boat <br />holding the thin whip of a pole. <br /> <br />That is something I am unlikely <br />ever to do, I remember <br />saying to myself and the person next to me. <br /> <br />Then I blinked and moved on <br />to other American scenes <br />of haystacks, water whitening over rocks, <br /> <br />even one of a brown hare <br />who seemed so wired with alertness <br />I imagined him springing right out of the frame.<br /><br />Billy Collins<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/fishing-on-the-susquehanna-in-july/
