The Taliesin Soliloquies: Salmon

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Scales glittering like water in the sun –

a fast-running river

sweeping away all stagnant energy.

I am long-memory,

the oldest of animals,

though newly born

by my stolen art.

I slipped free of death’s jaws,

shed fur, my moonwarm blood,

came to the waters for rebirth.

Sliding through a glassy world,

hidden to the human eye.

Escaping by the skin of my teeth,

drawn by instinct

back to the source –

by urgent need

to seed the soil that sired me.

Leap the waterfalls,

run the gauntlet of rapids,

predators,

ever pushing forward –

one slip and I’ll be swept back.

A river of questions searching

for their ocean answer.

To push or surrender to the flow,

yield to her deciduous embrace?

 

 

Copyright © Kevan Manwaring 2017

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From ‘The Taliesin Soliloquies’, originally published in The Way of Awen: journey of a bard, O Books 2010; to be included in the forthcoming Silver Branch: bardic poems by Kevan Manwaring, Awen, 2017 https://www.awenpublications.co.uk/

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