Salmon Leap Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Old riverman comes diving into air.
Boundaries break in his meteoric rise,
An explosive act of arrival.
From the tip of his back-lash-tail
To his shot-grey-silver nose,
A surprise in suspension;
An adept at simple survival.

Sun-catcher, mouth agape
As a bubble-cave, his eyes
Are points of perception
Couched in pearl,
Wide and awake as wonder.

He arcs his rainbow-fins,
A delicate, flying bridge
Of continuous flow,
Till, tense-bow-snapped,
He arrows below the wave
In a rumbling, tumbling, thunder
Of underwaterling drop,
Into a lane of fleet, torpedoing fish.

Leap, leap, aquatic brother!
Even a man might wish
To gulp each moment,
Fill each second,
Real, and alive as Now.
But, never looking forward,
Ever back,
I have forgotten how.