RIVER WITH NO NAME

There is a boulder which divides a river
which I first saw when in my teens
way in the mountains where hemlocks shiver.
The water rushed in white and greens.

Every year or so I'd go fish there.
Sometimes a fish held in the slack.
Sometimes the eddy was cold and bare.
The smell of freedom always brought me back.

My wand would wave, the line would whisper
the feather'ed lure carried by line's weight.
Over time my delivery grew crisper
luring a few trout to their fate.

Storms would come and floods would go.
The river claimed a tree sometimes,
that boulder stayed there even so
echoing the valley's rhymes.

Time flowed on as is its way
turning a youth to an old man
who less often dared to wade the fray
where that rock rules wet and tan.

a dawning came a week or so ago
that I have not waded there for years,
there where deep woods and wild trout grow.
For some reason I shed a few tears,