Fall Trout
- Fall Trout
When dead leaves clotevery pool and slow run,the big trout move.Dark backed, flanks flecked bloodred,they fin swollen bodiesup creeks too shallow to conceal.
In the river they were immortal,through brusing April floods,the clear, warm water of August.
Instinct that protected now betrays,will strike the streamerfrom a deeper urge than hunger,and fine no root-filled, undercut bank,no line-fraying rock ledgein their final, diminished world. [End Page 90]
Ron Rash is the author of the acclaimed works of fiction One Foot in Eden, Saints at the River, Burning Bright, The Cove, and most recently, Something Rich and Strange and The Risen. He was named Finalist for the 2007 and 2009 PEN/Faulkner Awards and has won the O. Henry Prize, the James Still Award from the Fellowship of Southern Writers, and the Weatherford Award.
