"Salmon Moon"

Surf
of moonwave,
mist of dawn by the sea.
Mist of long lovely night ending.

The moon steps through the night.
It goes out into the south and west.

Between sparse old shoreland spruce
the moon is a silver wing
in the clouds.

All night
the clouds drift over.
All night, salmon gather—
first of the run.

--Robert Sund, from Poems from Ish River Country

Dedicated to the 120 adult chinooks that still return to their birth gravels in the south fork of the Nooksack River.

Carving by Wayne D.F. Thomas

Robert Sund
salmon
NW poetry