Catching cockabullies
By Neroli Cottam
My sister's grandson
has her revisiting our childhoods.
Remember the creek,
our supple, slender bodies,
bending, hands cupped
to catch cockabullies.
As Aslan said to Lucy,
"Things never happen in
the same way twice.''
Yet similar things happen in different ways.
Consider this present image.
Her grey hair dipping towards the water,
as she lies belly down,
net drifting along the water race
to catch cockabullies,
body not so supple,
yet still able to bend and play a
prayer line in the water for
the silver, black, flash of the fish to
swim into the opening of the net.
And the sound in the background of
a small boy's laughter as they
tip the cockabullies into a large preserving jar.
The thrill of a capture
and a later release
still as potent as ever.
• Neroli Cottam is a Palmerston writer. In 2009 she self-published The Yellow Middle, a collection of linocuts and poetry.
