You bait the hook, drop the line into the lake
and wait like a stone for hours.

You do this as your practice every afternoon
for years on end.

You have learned to let go of expectations,
yet you envision reeling in the great fish,

thanking it for its life, then loosing it
back into the depths from which it came.

You imagine this must be like enlightenment,
something slippery and wild, cryptic

and ephemeral, never meant to be possessed.
But as you hold this thought, the great fish

strikes at last, plays the line, leaps and flops
like a koan into the bottom of your boat.

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/

Writer, editor and teacher Wayne Lee (wayneleepoet.com) lives in Santa Fe, NM. Lee’s poems have appeared in Tupelo Press, Slipstream, The New Guard, The Lowestoft Chronicle, Writer’s Digest and other journals and anthologies. He was awarded the 2012 Fischer Prize and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and three Best of the Net Awards. His collection The Underside of Light was a finalist for the 2014 New Mexico/Arizona Book Award. His chapbook Buddha’s Cat will be published by Whistle Lake Press in May 2024 and his collection Dining on Salt: Four Seasons of Septets is forthcoming from Cornerstone Press in 2026. Lee is the founder and host of the online Tuesday Poetry Practice community.