Hiking the Hatchery Trail

Hiking the Hatchery Trail

On the path to the salmon hatchery
beneath the canopy of the green
Douglas fir standing like tall
foot soldiers—water rushing. Beyond, the
peaks of lofty, mountain passages
white with late snowfall, fallen and decaying

sections of old growth forest
the ghosts of giant sequoias
whisper in the gentle wind
brownish, pronged, scattered, bits and
pieces of history- remnants of an early age
with lifeless, agéd fossils in the ground;
embossed timepieces—

embedded for eternity, slow-moving
the foggy path advances —

we penetrate this novel world wary,
bitter, unsure of ourselves
unlike the wild salmon . Everything about them
the cold, familiar water—

then the gravel, next
the green moss of spawning beds
little by little matter is distinct —
It vivifies: lucidity, outline of the origin

But now the reality of the season
eternity—yet, the intense transformation
has come upon them: deep-seated, they
now deposit new life and begin to die.