In Water

Returning to the place

of their becoming

salmon gather.

Thick in a pool

awaiting a signal to begin

running

the gauntlet of men, bears, and eagles,

exposed, determined, of one purpose.

It is time.

A call heard from the river

or an echo inside themselves.

What force drove them to the ocean

as small fry

making their way to sea level?

What force delivers them inward,

shapeshifting

to swim the salt from their bodies?

Called to origin

and death.

***

Being

***

We also gather at the river and enter,

in seasons,

some for new beginnings

and some to honor endings.

To gather strength for rebirth,

or to honor the dead.

In water, life and death are gathered together.

~~~~

In the traditional Japanese calendar, twenty-four yearly seasons were divided into three micro-seasons, each lasting about five days for a total of seventy-two micro-seasons.

This poem is the final celebration of the winter season: Taisetsu (大雪), the season of Greater Snow.

December 17–21 Salmon Gather and Swim Upstream (鱖魚群 sake no uo muragaru)

The winter solstice on the 21st of December marks the turning point of winter in the third of six winter seasons. After this, we begin our journey back toward the light in the Northern Hemisphere.

If you would like to read more micro-season poetry for past and future seasons and have a Medium subscription, you can follow my list here. They are numbered and listed in reverse order. I plan to write them in time with the season at hand. The original post from December of 2023 can be found here.

As always, thanks for reading my work and thanks to editor Thomas Gaudex of Scribe for overseeing my work over the course of a calendar year.

Natalie