“Salmon swimming upstream”

Bronze-shadowed dawn on a glacier-born stream,  
Pebbles and moss catch the hush of a dream.  
In thrumming chill currents where sunlight is thin,  
The salmon return to the place they begin.

Their flanks flash like banners, pink-backed and strong,  
Intent on a journey remembered so long;  
Through rapids that batter, past rocks split and scarred,  
They leap—silver arrows—undaunted, unmarred.

Up waterfalls seething and currents that churn,  
Unyielding, unfailing, they follow the turn  
Of the water’s old song: “Come home, little one,  
For darkness is ending, your journey begun.”

Above, spruce trees whisper, and eagles take flight,  
While bears watch for flashes of muscle and light.  
Yet onward the salmon ascend in refrain,  
Defiant and dancing through struggle and strain.

Each scale is a story of hardship and flight,  
Of ocean-wide wanderings, indigo night,  
Now kissed by the sun while they surge, swirl, and climb—  
A marvel of memory, muscle, and time.

When dawn gilds the river, the world holds its breath:  
For the heart wills the journey, and longing outwits death.  
Bright travelers struggle, then vanish unseen—  
Circle completed, upstream in the green.

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