End of summer and rain has fallen
every day for more than a week
providing swift, high water in streams.
Maybe I summoned them, subconsciously,
in a language of bricks and mortar,
adding a fireplace to my cabin, a hearth
for homecomings. First time in ten years
salmon are running waters in Cedar Creek
around my dwellings.
Smiling and pointing neighbors
gather at the culvert bridge
where salmon circle and charge
each other like romping dogs,
males forcing their way to females
who roll and broom huge tails
clearing pebbles, ledges of stone,
prepping nests and creek bottom
for their cargo of eggs, pearlescent
clusters of pink/orange. Mornings
we find salmon belly-up in the lake
or washed to shoreline among skiffs
and pontoons, meaty flesh hanging
off spines and flanks, bloated bodies
the size of small snowshoes.
Black capped, the Great Blue Heron
slide-steps through the dead,
a trove for greedy gulls.
What has brought this treasure of fish
remains a puzzlement for jabbering,
happy birds who could not care less.
All I really know is while high water
runs in the creek, salmon will have this
home to return to, next year and every year
thereafter. And instead of my own
self-centered, falling-apart dance,
I have reunion to look forward to.
Alan Basting
Alan Basting was born in Detroit and grew up in northwest Ohio. He taught creative writing, composition and literature at University of Cincinnati and Owens Community College in Toledo. His books and chapbooks include: Singing from the Abdomen, Stone-Marrow Press, 1976; What the Barns Breathe, Window Press, 1982; Suddenly, Herons, The Writer’s Cooperative of Toledo, 1986; Deep Time, Daily Habits and Events, sponsored by The Arts Commission of Toledo, 1992; Nothing Very Sudden Happens Here, Lynx House Press, 2013; Home and Away, Finishing Line Press, 2019; Apples and Crows, Kelsay Books, 2023; White Fence: a Collaboration, Window Press, 2024. Two additional manuscripts are under consideration.
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