Fighting their way
five hundred miles upstream
living on the fat
they'd carried with them
from the Pacific
these Chinook were resting
splashing in the shallows
of the Imnaha
having left the Snake
and the Columbia
behind them and completed
their long journey of return

As we watched them
bodies dark in the clear water
dancing their final dance
the precious eggs
safe in the redds
formed in the gravel
by the females
we could only feel enlivend
by the presence
of something older
wiser than ourselves

from their thousand mile pilgrimage
up the Columbia into the Snake
and then up this narrower stream
the Imnaha
these Chinook
were here to make their redds
down in the gravel pools