ecargo7 Aug 2003

Nice edit--I like how you pared it down to the essential image. Some nits?

Pike are generally solitary (they're very aggressive) and they tend to hide, waiting for prey, so I don't think you would see a stream "silvered in pike." Maybe another freshwater fish--something that shoals?--would work better here.

The trombone is disconnected from the rest of the poem now, without the band playing nearby [in our view]. Might something other than a trombone work here--something that works within the scene you've rendered?

The devil's in the details! But that's not to take away from what is, at its core, really fine work.