An angler's poem in October

Editor's note: We're revisiting some fall colors and sentiments this first week of December for the Fly Fishing Journal. We hope you enjoy a little throwback.

This October I shall go fishing.

I haven't done so yet, but I will soon. This is a statement of purpose, not the expression of an idle wish.

There aren't many fishing days left. The changes in the weather as we enter October reminds me of that. While it is still a bit sunny, pleasantly chilly, or softly overcast but not too cold, there is still time.

This year I won't be among the diehards as I once was, stripping streamers through icy hands under stormy skies. Then, the chance to nail one more big brown trout was worth it. Not this year.

I'll take the conditions as I find them. This October I'd rather go out on a bright sunny day when there's not much chance of catching anything, marvel at my surroundings and marinate in solitude, make a few casts and maybe, on the very next one, catch a fish. You never know. You never know until you make that cast, or the very next one.

While I wander along the cobbles of a seasonally low and clear river I can hear, in my head, Willie Nelson's version of September Song. Willie Nelson's September Song is far removed from Kurt Weil, the son of a Jewish cantor who fled Nazi Germany to re-embark on a musical career in America during the 1930s. The lyrics to Weil's tune were written by playwright Maxwell Anderson and between them they pioneered what became the Broadway musical as we came to know it during the years that followed WWII.

Freedom to go fishing or to write songs celebrating love and freedom - in the case of September Song, love to be grasped as the days grow short in the seasons of one's life - become especially poignant to me this October.

"The days dwindle down... to a precious few..." and I'll spend some of them on the rivers and streams where I can retreat from the noise of this election year. And as I do every fall, I'll try to store up enough of what I find out there to sustain me through the short, dark days to come.

I'm reminded, too, every October, of the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas' Poem in October, written about his thirtieth birthday. Some of the lines go:

... Blackbirds and the sun of October

Summery

On the hill's shoulder,

Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly

Come in the morning where I wandered and listened

To the rain wringing

Wind blow cold

In the wood faraway under me.

...

It was my thirtieth

Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon

Though the town below lay leaved with October blood.

O may my heart's truth

Still be sung

On this high hill in a year's turning.

My heart too, Dylan, for many years past your thirtieth when you wrote your poem. There is still some truth to be sought and sung in every human heart, and as the leaves gloriously announce the turn of summer toward the stark stillness of winter, it's there to be seen. And felt. And known, through our senses and stored within us where it matters most.

For me to do that is easy. I take a favorite fly rod, depending on the water, and a box of flies, some of them old and maybe sentimental favorites and some of them newly-tied, and prepare to take my fly rod for a walk. When they're ripe enough, I'll stuff one pocket of my fishing vest with a few local apples - tart little Macintoshes - and fill one water bottle with water and another with hot green tea.

If I see a fish rise, I'll fish in earnest. Until I do, I'll just walk, maybe cast and fish a little, or take breaks to sit on a log or a grassed-over rocky bank. I might take an apple, feel it crack against my teeth as my mouth waters against its tartness, and reach for the tea or water bottle.

The beauty can be too much to take in - it demands my attention and I give it, willingly, lingeringly. A glance is not enough to savor its full effect - and that's what I'm after when I fish in October.