Adrienne Silcock
Whitby, North Yorks, UK

Adrienne’s work has been published widely in the independent press. Her first novel Vermin (Flambard) was published in 2000. Her second novel Controlling Aphrodite was shortlisted for the Virginia Prize 2009. Her third novel The Kiss is published on Amazon. Her first poetry pamphlet Taking Responsibility for the Moon was published in 2014 and she is a featured poet in Arachne Press’ 2018 collection by six women poets Vindication. She is looking forward to publishing her first collection later this year.

Date poem was written 31 March 2020

The Humility of Salmon

 

If you listen, you might hear

the ripple’s shadow as the scent

of the river coaxes the salmon

to swim up the estuary all the way

to the narrow beck of its beginnings,

the beck where you wouldn’t, no,

you wouldn’t ever, have imagined

a fish of that size making its journey.

 

If you listen, really listen, you might hear

the splash of lithe muscle, or see

the magnificent arch from the water,

the precise physics of landing into

a pool above the tumbling stones

and then into the next, hardly any

distance higher at all - so grazed and rocky the flow -

into the pool that only just takes the fish’s length

pushing the realms of possibility until

humility of salmon finds bounds in

the pool beneath the falls.

 

You and I may then turn to each other, say

“If only the salmon could manage the height

it could reach that quiet pool above the torrent

beneath the sheltering branches where

sunlight filters through like grandma’s lace

and dapples the water…”

 

Even though the fish could have all this,

a voice within it says

here the journey must end, the spawning is here.

The world may be beyond, but it’s also here. In this pool.

Close to the thick ribbons of water which

crescendo like no other ribbons.

 

And maybe then it will be

time to consider the future and

the smolts who will follow the trail,

eventually somersault between pools

all the way down to the estuary

and the sea again, sensitive to

their own imperfect mystery.

 

 

 

Note: Smolts are young salmon which make their way from the river to the sea for the first time.