During our short trip up Island, we visited the Little Qualicum River Fish Hatchery. It's salmon spawning season in the rivers around here. The photo shows a beautiful scene, quiet water with overhanging branches and picturesque gulls.
What the photo doesn't highlight, but that you can pick out if you look on the left side of the river, against the bank, just under the water, are the hundreds and thousands of dead salmon. They lie there, stacked up in some places three and four deep, lifeless, gray. The stench of death was in the air. Along the bank, picked-over skeletons bear mute evidence to bears, eagles and other predators, including the gulls.
Profligate, they lie sodden,
rotting.
Bare limbs reveal austere architecture
Yet, as leaves sink into earth
Hope glimmers in the promise of spring.
The start of this poem came to me as we were driving. The first line was so clear, I wonder if it is from something I read somewhere else. If so, and if you know of the source, please let me know. If not, I guess I'm smarter than I think, because I like the imagery.
Had any poetic thoughts lately? Care to share?
