[40] At the Calling of a Faint, Otherworldly Voice, Larry D. Thomas

timely as the split second of the solstice,
the salmon ascend the fathoms of the deep blue sea

and gather at the mouths of great rivers.
With but fin, thrashing muscle

and an inscrutable act of God,
they climb the rungless ladders of cataracts

and exhaust beyond recovery
each determined ounce of their being

just to spawn and then to bleed into the shallows
the cold pulsing sunsets of their lives.