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The man stood at the edge of the estuary, searching the mud flats for signs of the bait he would need for the coming night’s fishing. At his feet, the seagrass leaned toward the west, pulled by the gentle wash of the incoming tide. Between the clumps of grass, the shallows were buttoned by prawn holes and razor clam burrows. The water glided over his naked feet; it was surprisingly warm for this time of year, this time of night.The man took every opportunity to be alone with his rod, reel and the wide night sky. This was his heart-space; where all the filters of his life were removed and thoughts wandered lazily, without prescription, in and through him. Out here, he could dream, without the emptiness of sleep. Somewhere in the tangle of shadows of the Milkwood trees behind him, the hu-hoo of a Spotted Eagle Owl ushered in the night, which was spilling over the old Outeniqua mountains and would soon come to rest on the glassy veneer of the lagoon. He was convinced that the owl was a resident of this particular patch of night: He had even considered a few suitable names for the bird, which he knew was mildly absurd, but was in keeping with his nature. He assumed there were a pair of them, as they were known to mate for life, yet all he had ever heard were the voices. The closest he had come to seeing them was a shadow feathering swiftly, silently, above or behind him as they hunted.

The man went to work on his own hunt in the shallows, pumping out the wild-legged mud prawns before the Spring tide reached its full height. He tore a handful of seagrass from the pool of light floating from his head torch and tucked the cool, wet leaves into his bait bag. This would keep the prawns alive throughout the night. Soon, a familiar ache warmed across his lower back from the effort, as he stood from his hunching and stretched his bones, and his sight, from the water at his feet to the stars brightening between the horizons. When his bait bag had reached a level he knew would last him the night, he waded back to the spongey shore, speckled with the shell-grit of ancient middens, kneaded softly in the timeless loop of the moon’s enduring odyssey.To the west, he knew, a rocky outcrop muscled a bend in the flow of the tide, where currents shifted across a deep pool nesting there. He gathered his rod and bait bag and headed toward the ledge where he would spend the night.The First Nations people across these shores had, over millennia, worn the path he followed; not a trail, not a track; a path of deep spirit burned into the earth.The moon lifted herself from her bed behind the Outeniquas, full and plump with the stories of seasons.The tidal edge bloomed in welcome, a ribbon of silver braiding around the lagoon, holding back the land.The man stepped up onto the smooth rock ledge, still warm from the Autumn sun. Below him, and far into the night, the surface of the water wore the glaze of hammered steel. He settled into his familiar routine; planting his camping chair at the rock’s edge, with his tackle-box and bait bag at arm’s reach.

He began to rig his line as the soft hush of the night settled in around him. By now, the moon was already a hand-span above the horizon, her light drifting across the rock. The stars were gathering in swarms above him. He clicked off his headlamp to save the batteries. Selecting a 1-0 hook, he held it up to his face and aimed the mono-filament line at the eye. This routine was always a challenge, his eyes were getting old and his depth perception and refractive accuracy were beginning to fade. He stabbed the end of the line toward the eye, squinting in concentration, but missed the first time. He held the hook higher, using the ambient light (the head torch somehow made the task more blurry) so that the hook’s eye was at half an arms length from his own. He closed his left eye, the weaker one, held the hook in his left hand, and the tip of the line in his right. As the line approached the hook, he noticed a star perfectly positioned in the centre of the tiny steel circle. For a brief moment, the star remained fixed in place in the middle of the hook’s eye. He did his best to hold it there, but of course his hands were not that steady, and the star soon drifted out and away. He tried to pull it back by moving the hook first this way then that, but the slight tremor in his left hand had put that star to flight. He lowered the hand holding the hook and found the star he’d harnessed, for one brief wink in time. It was the centre star of Orion and he thought this was fitting; that he had held captive, for a pause in the infinity of the constellations, the one they call The Hunter.

He sat a while, marvelling at the wide scattering of the stars that framed his small space, his insignificance, in this moment. And yet, for all his inconsequence, for all his smallness among the wonder of all things, he had pulled a star through the eye of a hook where, before, he couldn’t thread a line.The monofilament curled forgotten at his feet. The hand holding the hook lay down on his knee.The man wondered at the stillness of the stars. For all he knew, they should be a blur of streaks across the sky. The rock he was on spun at 1 000 miles an hour. It revolved around the sun at 67 000 miles an hour. Yet he had held a star in a tiny noose. He was not what you would call a godly man. He had spent so much of his life shoring up his brittleness, so much time wandering the way of the withering soul, he held no domain for gods. For him, the next step forward was simply a place you landed your foot. He had left no imprints of consequence, had made no plans, built no spiritual foundations.Until now. Out of nowhere, out of everywhere, he felt the tears streaming down his cheeks, spilling on to the hand that held the hook.This sudden release of emotion he had long held in check was altogether unfamiliar. This moment of pure chance, this snaring of a star by his own hand, a star 2 000 lightyears away, had suddenly revealed the full sovereignty of his imagination. This epochal moment had just illuminated a sacred place buried way down deep, where his soul had slept in the shadow of all his years.

He felt the moon pull at his tides, his tears pooling in the dips and hollows of his journey to this moment in time. While before he would have sunk, perhaps even drowned, in this sudden and unforeseen flooding, now his senses were splashed with an ascendance of the life force that had ebbed from him on his long journey to this moment. High above, The Hunter sparkled a little brighter. At his feet, the rock ledge was anointed by the Harvest Moon. In his heart, he held a heavenly body many times larger than Earth’s own sun.The man fell back to his task of threading the hook to his line. This time, with a steady hand, he made the knot good and tight.Taking one of the scrappy mud prawns from his bait bag, he mounted it on the hook and cast his line into the deep channel below. As his line sank, his eyes rose once again to the night sky.There. West of Orion’s belt, was Orion’s sword. Up high and to the east was the Great Southern Cross.The man’s night had been bejewelled with wonder. Now he felt a gentle tremor in the line at his fingertips. It had been a while since he had caught a fish. Most nights, his fishing pursuits were simply a way to retreat from the world. For the first time since he was a child, words formed in his mind in the shape of prayer. Sheepishly, he found himself saying “God, you’ve done a pretty good job with all of this. Now” he added self-consciously, which was in keeping with his nature, “Could you help an old man catch a fish?”

Just then, his line screamed out from his reel. A fish. The first in weeks. His rod bucked with the furious attempts of the fish to free itself. The battle lasted many minutes before the fish, exhausted, made its first appearance at the surface of the water. Of course, the man would release the fish. It had been a most worthy adversary. For its courage and its will, for its power and stamina, for its thirst for the deep, he would soon set it free from the hook. Much as he had the star, the one they call The Hunter. Much as The Hunter had done for him.