Salmon People

Certain fish swim upriver
And plant their flesh
In the bones of the water:
Shimmering life givers
Bleeding their essential sacrifice,
Blessing
The belly of creation.

Forests become metaforms,
Life forms around the sea
And her metamorphic fish
Spawning in swales
Nursing in headwaters
Feeding in deltas
And maturing in the sea’s bosom.

For any animal that eats
Or is eaten
The smell of blood is paramount.
When mountains bleed their
Vital sediment, the scent
Of ancestral burial grounds
Sounds the season of winter’s egg.

Salmon people are like nails:
They hold this temple together.
Forever their blood is in our veins,
Rivers coursing to seas receding,
Revealing bleeding dirt
Birthing forests that make rain
For this peninsular altar.