“The Sacrifice of a Salmon”

Born in the hush of mountain streams,
where waters whisper like a mother’s prayer,
the salmon begins — a shimmer of silver hope
cradled in cold, crystal cradles of stone.

Drawn by some secret rhythm of the Earth,
it turns seaward —
to the vast, salt-breathing world,
where tides are tempests and stars are strange.
There it learns the language of the deep,
of hunger, danger, and the long forgetting of home.

Years pass in the rolling wilderness of blue,
yet somewhere, beneath its gleaming scales,
memory burns —
a pulse that hums of the river’s scent,
of moss and rain and the music of its birth.

And so it turns —
against the pull of the sea,
against the current and the certainty of rest.
Up the wild rivers it climbs,
leaping through white foam and stones that wound,
fighting gravity itself,
to return to where it began —
to die where it once dreamed of life.

In that final surge, it gives itself
so that life may circle again —
eggs buried in gravel,
hope hidden beneath cold water.
The body fades,
but the current remembers.
The river carries its story onward,
a song of return, of endurance, of love
so fierce it ends in giving.