You're trying to think of the name of the actor
in that movie you saw some time back;
a movie you loved, but didn't quite make it
at the box office, and never gets shown on TV.
You try to picture the actor's face, but discover
your mind has wandered off to that wilderness lake
in Minnesota where you and your wife went every year,
and it's out in the boat fishing for bass
with its cell phone turned off.
You try calling it back, but it's no good, it doesn't
want to be bothered, so you think -- oh well,
it doesn't really matter who the actor was,
like so many things we think we have to know.
Berating yourself for forgetting will only make matters worse.
Fishing is so much more relaxing anyway, and you notice your wife,
miraculously alive again, is already there in her seat in the stern,
waiting, so you take your place at the bow and toss out a line, too.
The familiar tug at the other end reminds you
this is better than any movie.
Your catch jumps once, and your eye detects a sudden glint of plastic,
a strange mixture of colors. You reel it in and find it's a DVD case;
a movie starring Nicholas Cage, the actor you were trying to think of,
in the last place you ever thought you'd find the answer.
i was hooked today by your 'how-to' title and then of course by 'horses'. i admire so much your simplistic compacted way of saying so much yet leaving the reader such a irristable invitation to fill in the blanks. 'requiem'.....the perfect example.
i feel like i just found an unopened christmas present in july. thank you stephen.....pmedlin
JOYCE * HIS INSPIRATIONS
Ron
Rx