Fishing – Delayed Gratification

There is a creek I know, unremarkable to most. Looking at it you wouldn’t think much of it: willows, dogwood, river birch, aspen and a single fir clutch its banks. It meanders through sagebrush sprinkled meadows where free ranging cows occasionally flatten the vegetation and punctuate the air with a pungent smell. Above the meadow [...]

Last Hole – a poem

I’m no poet, although I’d love to be. As always, feel free to comment—I can take the heat.
Last Hole
Was this the hole,
where limestone walls shoulder the margin
between earth and sky?
He bends into the current,
casts about forgotten water thickened by rains.
Forgotten waters, patterns, faces—
even the name of this disease.
His fly skitters across the surface,
vees the liquid [...]

Literary Outdoor Blog – StoryArc

Do you like reading well-written fishing stories? Enjoy "Gray’s Sporting Journal" but wish it came out more frequently so you could read some decent outdoorsy type poetry? Are you a closet writer? Have some great photos you’d like to share with a larger viewership?
Then StoryArc is the place for you. David Motes, a published writer [...]

The Return – a poem

First (rough) draft of a poem. Other drafts may follow, although I often let a poem sit for months/years before returning to it.

The Return
In the rising heat of summer,
the lowering sun to your back,
you follow the black river
that runs two strands:
a chimera shimmers ahead—
the asphalt mirage you follow
east—the other returns behind you
to the headwaters in [...]