Hazelnut

There is a story about a salmon

that swims in a devotional pool;

her silver plated belly cradled

by water, which itself, is a fusion

of the pentagonal molecules

of hydrogen and oxygen

in the intimacy of a covalent bond.

The branches of nine hazel trees,

mirrored in scales, overlook

each plunge and leap of fish - 

how the electricity of myth 

is conducted here.

And a hazel will bend, nudged

by wind until it drops its fruit

into the open gape of mouth

reflected beneath, wrestled

by the black tongue and teeth 

of a king salmon that has bitten

into the night. Grown from catkin

to nut, this fish is fed a world 

of wisdom only for a man to bait,

and gobble it up

for the flesh of its knowledge.

What is stolen

that might have been shared,

what is slain 

that might have been spared, and yet,

if this salmon could speak,

she would only say 

that this is precisely in the way 

that to life, death is everything,

and life is everything to death. 
 
 

Image is from here: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chinook_salmon2.jpg

https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_guide_to_the_trees_(Page_182)_(8434866721).jpg