Weekly Poem: 'Elegy'

By Natasha Trethewey

Elegy

For my father

I think by now the river must be thick      with salmon. Late August, I imagine itas it was that morning: drizzle needling      the surface, mist at the banks like a netsettling around us -- everything damp      and shining. That morning, awkwardand heavy in our hip waders, we stalked      into the current and found our places--you upstream a few yards, and out       far deeper. You must remember howthe river seeped in over your boots,       and you grew heavy with that defeat.All day I kept turning to watch you, how       first you mimed our guide's casting,then cast your invisible line, slicing the sky       between us; and later, rod in hand, howyou tried -- again and again -- to find      that perfect arc, flight of an insectskimming the river's surface. Perhaps       you recall I cast my line and reeled intwo small trout we could not keep.      Because I had to release them, I confess,I thought about the past -- working       the hooks loose, the fish writhingin my hands, each one slipping away      before I could let go. I can tell you nowthat I tried to take it all in, record it       for an elegy I'd write -- one day --when the time came. Your daughter,       I was that ruthless. What does it matterif I tell you I learned to be? You kept casting      your line, and when it did not come backempty, it was tangled with mine. Some nights,      dreaming, I step again into the small boatthat carried us out and watch the bank receding --      my back to where I know we are headed.Natasha Trethewey was named U.S. Poet Laureate earlier this year. She has written four collections of poetry: "Thrall," "Domestic Work," "Bellocq's Ophelia" and 'Native Guard,' which won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize. Art Beat will have a conversation with Trethewey later this week.