Returning Home

Upon a sand bar,
an odyssey ends.
The tide recedes
and with it,
life.

A final flare of gills,
one last gaping yawn,
an electric shudder, and
all grows still. But,
a river rushes on.

Life floods in,
on tireless tide,
sweeping salmon upstream.
For generations. For centuries.
Since unrecorded time.

Black bear snorkels, otter spirals,
Eagle swoops and
the water explodes.
Life flourishes beyond
this inner calm.

When I succumb to time,
grow humped and hook-jawed,
discolored, disfigured, too weak to
hold in the current.
Then let the current take me.

Forego the prison of an
airless, lightless, leakless coffin.
Instead, recline me upon a riparian
bank cushioned with
fireweed and lupine.

Allow me to breathe
life into the life around me.
To feed the land that fed me,
when I, robust and ravenous,
sought pleasure and provision.

Permit these unseeing eyes
to gaze upon her splendor,
upon the ageless beauty
she offered, even as I aged.
Let me witness life that is the afterlife
forever after.

Return me to my home.
Alaska.
She suckles her young
on the remnants of a moment,
while collective memories

       settle

among

       a bed

of salmon roe.