Heart on the Key

It's a bit of a bleak day today, cloudy, breezy and there's snow on my car. Soon I'll need to bundle up and make the Saturday errands, doing all those tasks the weekdays make no time provision for. As I've gotten older, I've lost my fondness for the winter months and today my heart is elsewhere.....

Key River Remembered


For months on end I've envisioned a boat time
Sunlicked, bare-armed, leaning on gunnels dreamed.
Bleak imaginings not once could enter my mind
As weedbeds and riverholes by me streamed.


Fantasies of sleepy bass, pickerel and black green pike
In lily beds, creakfaces, searching from far below
Hiding and peering, remain for lure surface strike
Baitwaiting, concealed in the dark, streamlined flow.


But daydark is long, so long this month December
Sweeping white billows, flakes, piles belie summer ever.
Mind's eye returns to north Key River remembered
The sun, the waves, the breezes, the soul's endeavor.


For soon skies will change, bright green to emerge
Hungry fish to find within full leafy spurge.

The Key River can be entered right at Highway 69, just before you encounter the French River. There's about an hour's boat ride (depending on the horsepower of course), to the open waters of Georgian Bay. We fished against high rising rock faces and in weed-filled channels and beaver ponds. On every occasion, we marvelled at the beauty of this place.