Fishing

We fished beside each other without talking—
the water spoke enough for both of us,
the line and the waiting and the patience
the whole curriculum of the fuss-less.

He didn't need to fill the silence teaching,
the teaching happened in the being there,
in the way he held the rod with easy confidence,
in the fact of him beside me in the air.

The fish were secondary to the lesson:
how to be still, how to wait, how to trust—
a father and a son in morning water,
learning what's essential from what's not a must.
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