My hands are cold and stiff and hard,
But happy to there,
Trying to bait a rusted, crusted hook
With an already half dead nightcrawler,
Too cold to wiggley and squiggley,
And I feel like him.
Lunch for a bass soon to be my own,
A repast meant more for the trouble it took.
I can’t feel my feet as they break the ice
Tinkling like the stained glass window Tom broke last year,
And melting on the inside of my boots,
But I don’t feel it anymore.
They fall as the water line rises above my boots,
Seeping into my wool socks,
Making them useless and heavy.
Tom walks ahead, tired of dragging a little sister
Who’s more determined than Apollo following a Nymph
To keep up with long strides falling softly, stoically and swiftly
(though hopefully Tom will refrain from turning into a laurel.)
He stops and turns, slowly acknowledging I’m near,
Before the tears freeze on frozen eyelashes,
Takes my rod and casts it for me helping me hold it til my cold hands will respond on demand.
Patient now and comforting and embarrassed to be so,
But as entranced to be the tutor as I am the student.
A fish is caught, and home again, friends again, and oh, to be warm again!

A further story about the near death experience that lead to this poem at:

http://www.authspot.com/Biographies/Fishing-with-Big-Brother-Explained.525981