Salmon

Salmon

Broken from the outset
I made my way upstream
Looking for the outlets
A place to drift... to dream

A space to sift through driftwood
A race to realms less loud
A trace of me that sits good
A face that stands up proud

Fractured, crooked, smiling
Content within its lot
Postmortems lost in stylings
… and found again in knots

The speeds we try to fathom
The depths we try to gauge
The shallows where we have them
The current doubts assuaged

Yet nestled in the undertow
A raft of thoughts, they roll
Like ice that's sold to Eskimos
They're surplus to the whole

They serve as excess in the hold
Baggage we don't need
It slows the journey, routes less bold
Goods traded we should heed

With lessons lost with faces
We should be calling friends
Lost in barren places
Beginnings missing ends

Through middles, we swim solo
Happy for the peace
If we're lucky fate might follow
Provide us some release

Release from routes expected
Sinker, line and hook
A lure bright, inflected
Taken out with just a look

A fancy fly to draw the eye
Away from current streams
So waterlogged, a spirit flies,
of other realms it dreams

Schemas carved of river flows
To ocean beds we've made
To lie in midst the undertows
With all the games we've played

Yet instinct tells us swim upstream
To where we all came from
A whisper building to a scream
To what we will become

… 'cause in the end, we're broken
Doesn't matter where we've been
Listen well when words are spoken
Find your family... drift... and dream