PATIENT FISHER
Dad, Uncle Tommy, and Grandpa Bill
invited me to go fishing with them
I was only five and quite honored
Turned out I was in charge of the beer
Keeping it tied to the rowboat
immersed in the chill of the lake
They whispered their jokes and told me
that fishing is all about patience
Tossing out the line and waiting for a nibble
If you didn’t get a fish the first time, you tried again
You grow up, you adapt those lessons learned
to your adult life
In matters of faith, I remain a patient fisher
Living each day as though I’m tossing out a line
quietly, calmly, carefully
If someone nibbles, I let them
If they grab the line with gusto, I share my journey
And sometimes, if the water is just right
We float in a rowboat side by side
quietly chatting, sharing what God has offered us
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Sharp Little Pencil 
amanda
each experience prepares us for the next, and days like the ones in your story are the best kind to have.
Sharp Little Pencil
Dear Amanda, thank you for the compliment and for the observation. As I was told, life is about the journey. How you manage it is up to you!
Peace, Amy
vivinfrance
Amy, thanks for visiting my ranting blog. Your (free verse) poem is perfectly comprehensible, as well as a delightful memory. In other words, a good poem.
My rant was not against free verse per se. But I can’t be bothered with the kind of pretentious poem that has spaces in the wrong places, ill-considered line-endings, and which is impossible to read aloud in a sensible fashion!
Like you, I itch to correct typos, and am mortified to find them in my own work!
Sharp Little Pencil
Ha ha, I just self-published a short run of my first chapbook. Guess what? It had FIVE typos. Ah, that extra set of eyes…
Funny part is, each is inscribed as a “Collector’s Edition, with typos corrected by poet.” How’s that for marketing! 🙂
I understand completely your position about free verse and sympathize with your impatience with poor formatting for the sake of looks only. And as a former New Yorker, I can attest to the fact that I would not order pizza to go because every box was labeled, “Pizza at it’s best.” That’s probably my biggest pet peeve: The possessive use of “its.” How’s that for intolerant? I probably missed some excellent pizza!
vivinfrance
Thank you for your reply. Last week I received copies of two different journals each containing one of my poems in French. The first one was missing an ‘s’ and the second contained a grammatical error. And I had proof-read them both! I know that like most people, I am incapable of doing a proper job on my own work – we read what we think should be there rather than what actually is! Have you come across Lynne Truss’s book “Eats shoots and leaves”? It has a wonderful chapter on the use of the apostrophe.
Sharp Little Pencil
Oh yes I have read and perused the book to a great extent and, enjoying it very extremely much, have: takken to hart all massages. never depend on SpellCheck. I have two funny stories about SpellCheck that will turn into poems soon actually for real surely.
Ha ha. Amie (shotlittlepensil)
Dick
There’s a pleasing clarity and directness here through which objective narrative leads to personal statement.
Sharp Little Pencil
Thank you, Dick. Welcome to my blog; I look forward to more dialogue! Your words in comment are as well-chosen as your words in poetry. Peace, Amy