Silver Creek Preserve

En route to Aspen from Sun Valley, by way of a pit stop for a BBQ in Salt Lake City, I had a chance to visit a place where I had once frolicked as a child. Silver Creek Preserve, located where the rolling plains of Southern Idaho ebb at the mouth of the Wood River Valley, once played host to Papa Hemingway’s outdoor exuberance, and in years since, thousands of angling anglers have waded its calm waters. There are no rapids here; no malign obstacles. Only serenity greets the lone paddler, his tall stance poised, elongated paddle piercing the sheen of watery stillness. Out here, thoughts are like doves escaped the magician, uninhibited and flying freely in the wild skies of blue. The only audience to this moment of inspiration, a flock of fluttering ducks.

Glassy floor below,
Like a fin, paddle dips.
I swim with you fish.

Tags: angling, big wood, ernest hemingway, fly fishing, haiku, outdoor, poetry, preserve, silver creek, stand up paddleboarding, Sun Valley, trout, wildlife, wood river valley