Salmon Run

by mushroompone

One

When the leaves turn golden and crisp,

fried by the Summer Sun to a tender perfection,

the salmon come home to die.

What awaits them in those familiar streams?

What do they feel as they fight against that powerful current?

What unseen power of the earth

of the moon

of their own minds

guides them back out of the ocean

slips them into those narrow corridors lined with well-worn pebbles

and shards of glass?

Do they know they are bound by fate

to thrash through the whitewater

to be plucked

ripe and red

from those icy creeks

by hungry bears and swift eagles

on the way to frenzied death in the pools of home?

Do they fight to die?

Or do they fight because they feel

by some miracle

they might survive?