Polly Gnagy Seymour remembers the day this sunfish was caught and painted by her father in 1939.  The watercolor now hangs in her home, and ten years ago she wrote this poem about it.

The little sunfish, forever lying on a bed of green rushes,

Eyes a-goggle, mouth agape, belly glowing orange,

Recalls the morning she, no leaping trout, was hooked.

She was borne home in my father’s worn and homely creel,

Fitting catafalque for a humble creek-bred creature.

Mother, his own Sunnygirl, liked to tease that as an angler,

He was more ardent than skilled.

But that day the artist’s angle was to paint the perch

“Before the colors fade,” and he did.

Afterward, the frugal farmboy claimed his rightful prize,

And cooked the fish for breakfast.

I see his blunt, deft fingers (I’ve only to look at my own)

Catch again with brush the pretty perch,

Mix the rich, fat colors of dawn.

With equal swift economy of stroke

He scales, flays, and guts her,

And gaily shares the pan-fried morsel

With his round-eyed children.

I smile again at father’s art and ardor,

Tugged back to that still sunny time,

Caught by the fragrance of the grasses

And their cool freight of fishy freshness.

Sometimes the sunfish seems to flick her tail.

Polly Gnagy Seymour

2004