A Version

The canoe itself had a chromium sheen, and as it drifted on the mirrored surface of the lake, the craft saw itself in the water. The reflection defended by a reflection was sent into the sky and into the depths of the lake.  Images, disciduous trees and undulating clouds, the loud colors of spring, spread like butter or honey on still water.  The sunlight was the knife.  

When a trout broke the glass, or a shotgun blast of grebe wings distressed the silken silence, the boat would rock and the old man would sleep.  Dancing on the ripple, he was a hillbilly come down from the hills, a prophet from old times, and a fisherman from way back.

What the fisherman dreams depends on what the fisherman sees.  Little things interest him:  the way the bobber--red and white--converses with the underworld, wordless messages conveyed along a wire; how camouflaged among the greens and blues, the fish still glints with silver in the right light, at the right angle; then there is the sensation of its wounded body as it writhes within the creel (against your beating heart), the gaping gills as they try to salvage oxygen from air.