PISCES

HIGH ROCK PICKEREL

 My teacher & traveling companion Bryan taught  once again the concept of “flow”. It all flows. This is no more apparent to me than in the frigid blue green waters that my spirit guide the pickerel glides through. I am a man of the north. My ancestors are Vikings & Highland Scots. I live in one of the northern most cities of the world.  Winter is my mood & my vision. In my mind’s eye I see the swirl & striation, the strata & shimmer of cold waters. The fish & I know each other. We swim in the same deep stillness. I ease back into the easy chair. I open my fingers. Let the bubbles stream beyond me. I join the flow. I flow. Flow... just flow my friends... that’s all there is... flow...

SANDY LAKE PICKEREL

Ancient watcher of the glacier reef,

I rise as fingerling in the boreal stream,

My spine, the raven spires of forest fires...

My teeth, the jagged shards of grayling sky.

I am silence, stillness, dark, serene.

You sense my presence where I wait beneath.

Spawned from bed rock... grey & icy blue,

My eyes are saucers... summer’s lightning pool.

Silver, gold & green: silver,  gold & green.

Come sink beneath my dreamless dream

The deadfall deep... the space between.

Silver, gold & green;  silver, gold & green.

I belong to black & twisted spruce,

The sap of balsam, my night perfume.

New-fall spiral in winter whisper pine

The warm, the pink ... it’s these I so despise

...chorus

ATHABASCA PICKEREL

The Trout. The Jackfish.The Sturgeon. The Cod. The Salmon. Which is the fish which represents this great land of ours? I would argue the great Canadian fish is in fact the Pickerel. The Wall-Eye. I never knew what this creature looked like till my friend Kimberley asked me to paint one for her husband Brad for Christmas. I looked at about three hundred pictures of this awe-inspiring ancient creature. Wow! Ferocious. Beautiful like Barracuda or Tiger Shark. The spines are poisonous. They are silver & gold & live for decades at the bottom of distant northern lakes. They have nasty teeth & psycho-killer eyes.  The flesh for eating is white as a snow storm in the arctic dark. Delicious. When I think of Canada I think of Pickerel. When I think of Pickerel I think of Canada.