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?