(A Poem in the Spirit of Carl Sandburg’s ‘Chicago’)

You, fisherman of the North —
you with the cracked knuckles,
you with the ice-burned breath fogging the brim
of your wool cap,
you who pull your hood tight against a wind that cuts
like a tax bill, like a verdict, like a sentence served
every winter since the world stood upright —
you are the man I’m talking to.

You’ve stood on the jetty in January
when the Atlantic roared like a judge
not interested in excuses.
You’ve drilled holes in frozen lakes
thick as the backs of the oxen your grandfathers drove.
You’ve watched your line shiver in the darkness
inside that circle of ice —
watched it tremble like a heartbeat
trying to remember warmth.

And all the while your body stiffened,
your jaw clenched,
your boots froze into anchors.
Still, you fished.
Because that’s who you were raised to be —
a man who endures,
a man who pulls his own weight and often the weight of others,
a man born into duty
like an oar is born into water.

You who have carried wife and children
like a pack frame strapped tight to your spine.
You who have given so much
that your shoulders have forgotten what it feels like
to be without burden.
You who have shoveled snow
before dawn
so that your people would never see the storms
that clawed at you.

You — the Long-Suffering Fisherman of New England
and the Midwest —
the man who learned patience by freezing for it,
the man who cast not because the fish were biting
but because the rhythm kept you human.
You who have worked
through cold that kills batteries,
cold that cracks steel,
cold that makes a man remember his own bones.

Brother, listen now —
I speak for the water that waits for you.
I speak for the warmth you’ve forgotten.
I speak for Tampa Bay.

She misses you.

She, the broad warm-breasted bay,
rolling in blues and greens
you haven’t seen since your honeymoon —
she whispers your name
in the voice of tides that have never known ice.
She spreads her winter sun like blessing oil
across the backs of snook and redfish.
She shakes out the manatees like gentle old monks
gliding to chapel.
She hums with pelicans, ospreys,
dolphins carving silver prayers into the morning.

She wants you back —
not the you frozen to a shanty floor,
not the you buried in fleece and duty,
but the man beneath it all —
the man you were
before responsibility bent your spine
and quieted your laughter
and filled your lungs
with the cold smoke of obligation.

She remembers the young version of you,
the one who could spend all day
in the sun without a thought of tomorrow,
the one who found joy in the cast alone,
the one who didn’t have
so many people depending on him
that he forgot how to depend on himself.

Tampa Bay misses that man.
And brother — you miss him too.

Come south.
Just for a while.
Not to run away —
but to run toward something.

Because the winter here is not winter at all.
It is a reprieve,
a truce,
a warm hand laid on the back
of a man who has stood too long in the cold.
Temperatures in the 60s and 70s,
sunlight that feels like it remembers you personally,
breezes that move across the flats
as if brushing dust from your soul.

You won’t need to drill holes here.
You won’t need to bargain with frostbite.
You won’t need to wonder
if the wind will skin your face raw
before you catch anything worth the suffering.

Down here the fish are not asleep.
Down here they blaze beneath the surface:
snook sliding like muscle under silk,
redfish tailing in the mangroves,
trout flickering in the grass beds,
snapper stacked like coins
waiting for your hand to draw the next one.

Down here, winter is alive.
Winter is movement.
Winter is the season of pursuit —
the season where the fish are hungry,
the season where the water doesn’t freeze your willpower
into something brittle.

And I’ll tell you something else:
The locals here —
they know the northern fisherman
when he steps onto the dock.
They see your boots,
your set jaw,
your cautious optimism.
They see a man who has battled seasons
that would break lesser souls.
They see a visitor deserving respect.

And they welcome you like a cousin
returning home after too long away.

Because Tampa Bay is not merely warm water
and easy fishing.
It is a place where a man can breathe.
A place where he can remember
what silence feels like
without the threat of cold behind it.
A place where he can drop the pack frame
of his responsibilities
for a single weekend
and feel the world stop leaning on him.

You’ve been the workhorse long enough.
You’ve been the engine,
the provider,
the firewall against the storms.
You’ve split the wood,
paid the bills,
shoveled the drives,
fixed the gutters,
patched the roofs,
and eaten last
so your people could eat first.

But even a workhorse deserves pasture,
deserves warmth,
deserves rest that doesn’t feel stolen
but earned.

And you know this truth even if you never say it:
A man who never leaves
starts losing the parts of himself
his family loved to begin with.

You must go away
to come back better.

Go south, brother.
Go to the place where winter is gentle,
where the sun does not judge,
where the breeze does not punish,
where the water is not a wall
but a welcome mat.

Imagine it now —
you on the deck of a charter boat,
not layered in five coats
but standing easy in a T-shirt.
Your line humming out
over water clear as forgiveness.
Your shoulders loose,
your breath unhurried,
your muscles remembering something
older than stress,
older than your job,
older than the weight you carry.

The bay around you alive
with dolphins,
with birds,
with the gentle shuffle of manatees
moving like slow underwater prayers.
The mangroves hissing softly in the breeze.
The sun warming your forearms
until you remember
that your skin once belonged to July.

This is not running away.
This is recalibrating.
Resetting.
Refinding the man you’ve buried
under years of winter and duty.

And when you come home —
because you will come home —
your wife will see it in the shape of your smile,
your kids in the looseness of your laugh.
They’ll see the man they knew
before the cold made him rigid.
Before the grind made him quiet.
Before responsibility made him heavy.

You’ll return bearing gifts
not bought in stores:
patience renewed,
kindness sharpened,
presence restored,
a spirit rinsed clean by salt and sun.

A man cannot serve his family
with an empty reservoir.
He must step away from the cold
to remember warmth.
Step away from the grind
to remember why he grinds.
Step away from the frozen North
to remember he is not frozen too.

Tampa Bay calls you, brother.
Not to escape —
but to remember.
To remember the fisherman
who once fished for joy,
not survival.
To remember the man
who once lived with ease,
not only obligation.
To remember the soul
that longs for sun,
for open water,
for a tug on the line
strong enough to pull you
back into yourself.

So come.
Trade the ice for a rising tide.
Trade the auger for a free cast.
Trade the shiver for sunlight.
Trade the frozen lake
for a living, breathing, generous sea.

The bay is waiting.
Warm as memory.
Wide as second chances.
Alive as the man
you’re ready to become.

Come south awhile —
so you can return north
a better man.