Editor’s note: “My Magnum Opus” was nominated for the 2010/11 Best of the Net Awards.
A Spring Ritual
When the lilacs bloom
their purple scent intoxicating
the air, the white bass run
in the Root River
My ladies & I catch
three & cook them over
a pungent fire on
green sticks with herbs
Most fisher folks take
stringers full & stop
at a place & clean
their catch for hours
They look at us quizzically
as we feast & wiggle our
toes in the icy rushing water.
My Magnum Opus
As I paint
I think about
Van Gogh painting
sunflowers & irises
Degas painting ballerinas
Cezanne painting fruit
Gauguin’s Tahitian women
Frida Kahlo capturing sadness
Neruda & Li Po painting
with words
I wonder if any
of them ever
Painted a bathroom
with ordinary
white latex.
Catfish McDaris is from New Mexico. He’s traveled by thumb, freight train, and the shoe leather express across the U.S. and Mexico. He lived a summer in a mountain cave above a hot springs and a winter in a ’63 Impala in Denver.
Steel Toe Review 