May Ruination

I went on a very enjoyable boat trip a few weekends ago in the Delta Clearwater River of Alaska. It is  a beautiful place, certainly worthy of a visit. I wrote this poem afterward:

May Ruination

This is the Delta Clearwater—a river merging

into the Tanana and eventually, by way of opposing

currents introduces a lake. Transparent liquid

blankets rounded river rocks, flowing onward.

This river holds the clearest water

I’ve ever seen, my shadow in the shallows as the sun shines down realizing, today

is subtly impressive

I paddle onward, until meeting the waters

that for nearly a mile, spill from the lake.

the currents diverge here—a role reversal

from downward floating to upstream struggle—

upstream where the birds are, resting in the lake

So I step out of my boat to the river bed,

leading the boat like a leashed dog

to trudge onward, knowing churning feet

serve me better than cycling arms for awhile,

my foot  sometimes swallowed by clay- sludge

And amid this pleasant scene a stench rises

from a rotting salmon carcass, sleeping in the mud,

finished  with her migration to waste in May’s warm weather.

Now  sun rays beat my back and the salmon seeps

into my eyes while swans fly overhead, their calls

penetrating the once silent sky. Mesmerized by the fish’s

grotesqueness against graceful swans, I take one

picture of the fish sinking into muck

thinking each spring I witness these cycles

Those birds just upon the horizon,

calling with clarion cries, flocked

 and pleased with the weather make me look

one last time at the fish before  my boat

drifts beneath the bird stoked sky.

You laugh and say, “This is where things go to die.”

Clearwater Lake, reached after paddling the Clearwater River

*Thank you to Jonnell Liebl for helping me with the structure of this poem. My first attempt was quite disorganized!