Surf Fishing

a poem by Peter M. Ivey

Every time my feet touch the wide beaches of Emerald Isle, NC, I think of my grandfather, William “Bill” Price Armstrong. To me, to my sister, he was known as Papaw. And boy, did he love to fish. One of my favorite childhood memories is sitting in one of his green-and-white-checkered lawn chairs, made of aluminum, could lift it with a finger, under his and my grandmother’s carport, listening to the sizzle of fish a-frying.

Whiting. Redfish. Pompano. Flounder. Even the occasional pufferfish (tasted like chicken). But mostly whiting. A freezer stuffed to the gils with them, their annual October catch from the Crystal Coast. I can still taste the saltiness, hear the satisfyingly-gritty crunch, of fried tail between my front teeth that somehow fulfilled every primal hunger in my body. Finger-licking delicious. Made even more so by the fact that my Papaw had caught the bugger—cleaned it, scaled it, hauled it all the way back to Charlotte by the coolers’ full, for moments like these.

A few weeks ago, my family and I made the pilgrimage back to Emerald Isle, where Papaw not only slayed his own catch by the boatload, but saw to it as God’s direct order to pass down the love of cast-wait-and-eat. (Now that I have boys of my own, I’m so glad he did.)

While on our vacation, I rose early one morning for a run on the beach, just after sunrise. On up ahead, further than you always suspect, I noticed the silhouette of a man fishing, rod in stand, hands on hips, hat on head, just like my Papaw used to do it, gazing out across the water.

I stopped mid-stride and remembered his pre-dawn nudges to come and join him before breakfast for a couple casts in the surf. I remembered his bowed legs and his big toenail, rough and round, like a pressed ochre pebble. I remembered the words he’d whisper often while at the beach, year after year, whether we were at the water’s edge or peering out the window of our rental house: Look at the pelicans…

Also in that moment, I strangely recalled a story he once told: that of a haunting night patrol in Korea during the war. The details are lost on me now, but the building blocks are still there. A cold dark night. Gun-in-hand. The “enemy” stealing barrels of oil for warmth. His unwillingness to shoot or alert his platoon.

As I began to retrace my running-steps in the sand, a wondering began to form in my mind, a wondering about what Papaw might have been thinking about when he used to fish all those years ago at Emerald Isle. Those wonderings, and the memories I’ve shared here, have intermingled to form today’s poem.

Papaw doing what he loved, teaching me how to do it

Surf Fishing

after William Price Armstrong (aka Papaw)

Ugly anxious mornings
still wrestle me awake,
their shouts that sent us out
into the Korean cold,

where desperate men 
(like me) tore themselves 
over razor wire fences under 
the ink of night to roll oil 
barrels over their frozen feet,

up their flagpoled shins,
up their throbbing thighs,
up and over,
to live.

I still shiver at the memory of it
as I look out over the breaking waves,
waiting for a bite of truth on the line.

I couldn't shoot...
I couldn't.

How could I?

---

An Invitation

1. Read today’s poem slowly. What word, phrase, or image draws your attention, brings rise to an emotion or a memory, or provokes resistance?

2. Consider reading the poem again, this time placing yourself within the poem. Who are you? The poem’s narrator? A bystander on the beach? A passing gull, or a freezing soldier in the Korean cold? What do you see? What emotions arise? Become curious about this.

3. Consider giving the poem a third reading, listening for a personal connection, an invitation for you today.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s poem. Consider sharing your favorite line or a thought it’s brought about.

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