The Woolly Bugger

The Woolly bugger

This morning I was staggering numbly
around the brown carpet of my apartment ,
stumbling like a drunken clown, from bed to bathroom,
from computer to bookcase standing in the corner,
and I found myself staring at the cover of a fishing book,
where my eyes fell upon the words woolly bugger.

No tennis shoe lost on the beach by a child
could launch one into dream more suddenly —
a dream where I hunched over a fly vise by a stream
in a deep green forest-covered setting
imitating caddis, cutworms and crawly things
from fur and feathers, a gift for my uncle- a woolly bugger.

I had never seen anyone tie a woolly bugger
or fish one, if that's what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from wrapping
thread over thread again and again
until I had made a buggy-looking
black and olive and woolly bugger for my uncle.

He left me character and strength from his teaching,
and I gave him a woolly bugger.
He took me to many a ball game,
remembered my birthday each June,
came to the hospital during my tonsillectomy,
and then took me out for ice cream to soothe the pain

and taught me to fish and swim,
and I , in turn, presented him with a woolly bugger.
Here are the endless summer days, he said,
and here are my shoulders to lean on, and friendship.
And here is your wooly bugger, I replied,
which I tied with my own two hands.

Here is a friendly nature and a smiling face ,
sturdy limbs , strong will and good genes,
and one fine mind to comprehend complexity , he whispered,
and here, I said, is the woolly bugger I made by the stream.
And here I want to tell him now
All things are not equal or fair

that one can never pay back such kindness ,
but I must admit that when he put
the fuzzy woolly bugger on his line,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this revolting, repulsive bug I tied
by the stream, would be enough to make us even.