The Salmon Run
In blissful pools of death they wait,
Where the rushing river runs still,
And the wilding waves abate,
Languid in the limpid waters,
Waiting till a lick of rain wets the earth,
And gushing clouds drown the dirt,
The heroes leap from sea to stream,
Silver spears beneath a burning sun,
As sacred as words in a poets mind,
The quicksilver rush of inspiration,
Arising from the darkest depths,
To flash in sunlight as dreams unleashed,
They gather in their lucent cage,
As words gather upon the infinite page,
Spawning amidst the stone and gravel,
Red as embers upon the river bottom,
They scatter in the skittish flow,
Of waters white as milk, that sacred milt,
The great becoming of the salmon run,
Till torn with claws they drift ashore,
And rot in hauls upon the riverbanks,
Feeding the forest giants, those verdant gods,
Whose shadows net with watery roots,
The fragile eggs of future generations,
And guard them till the ocean calls anew,
As poems seek the questing poets soul.
.
