Dear Poon,
It’s been a while since we last saw each other—three weeks to be exact, not that I’ve been counting. You remember, right? That time you were swimming by, coyly feigning disinterest in my fly, and then suddenly turned and inhaled it? And then corkscrewed into two breathtaking leaps? And then sent my fly whistling back to me, via airmail?
I miss you. Here I sit in my office, staring at this stupid little screen, thinking about you and your spring/summer getaway in South Florida. That vast white sand flat, that opaque water, that cerulean sky.
I think about the fact that you, as a species, have been on this blue ball for fifty million years, a demonstration of the resilience that heaven knows you’re going to need now. I think about the fact that you, as an individual, will—God-willing and the creek don’t rise—get your AARP card and live into your seventies. I think about your physical grandeur, that power and might concealed by those gleaming scales. I think about the fact that you gulp air to replenish yourself and how, in some way, you are a symbol of the evolutionary link between dwellers of the sea and land. I think about how just the knee-knocking sight of you swimming down a flat can turn PhD’s into mental midgets and captains of industry into tantrumic toddlers. I think about how you’ve enticed many of us otherwise squared-away folks to take leave of our sanity and senses.
You are on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, painted by Michelangelo. You’ve inspired some of our finest wordsmiths—McGuane, Harrison, Hiaasen. “Immediate unreality” is how Brautigan, the poet, described an encounter with you.
I know we haven’t done right by you, polluting the water, destroying the mangroves, electing leaders corrupted by greed. But I pledge to do better, to try harder. In a world measured by worth, you remain invaluable.
I guess what I’m saying here is that I think about you a lot.
And that I really hope to see you again soon.
With gratitude and admiration and love,
-Monte
Lords of the Fly, Rivers Always Reach the Sea and Saban.
