;
Record Salmon Run at Mattole River
In the depths, I glimpse them,
grey shadows that flicker
or rest under the log bridge:
a kind of effortless hovering
(gills open and close)
in the circular act of breathing.
Then turning flint faces,
they muscle their way up,
Silver scales glinting in sunlight.
Agony of sheer will, sheer toil,
flounder up fall, or flip-
a moment’s flight broken
by rocks
tossed
in roiling waters,
gashed
on sharp snags.
I wonder how they go
without eating,
leave the ocean
without hope of return,
die without
seeing their young,
follow the magnetic pull
of home.
Christen Mattix is an interdisciplinary artist–painting, writing, performing, filmmaking. She grew up the eldest of 8 children in Thailand where her dad was a missionary translator, and her mom, a fulltime homemaker. Returning to the US, Christen studied painting and literature at Western Washington University, and later, received an MFA in filmmaking and painting at the San Francisco Art Institute.
See Christen’s latest project “For Longing” at christenmattix.wordpress.com
Read more of Christen’s poetry here.
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