Swimming Upstream

Swimming upstream

It's early June and
we hike into the woods
in search of alewives, 
 
river herring, swimming
upstream to spawn. In the
same body of water where
they hatched, that they
followed out to sea, and
now return to.

We follow a path that
follows the brook, and like
the fish we hope to see,
twist, turn, and tumble over
rocks, roots, and tree trunks
toward our destination.

But it's a lottery. A brief
window of time when our
schedule aligns with that of
the fish, with nature.

So we study the water,
looking beyond the
rippled reflections and
shadowed surface of
the clear water in the
shallow brook.

One false sighting after
another leads us along,
still eager, when we see
one, then two fish
swimming upstream.

Side by side, two by
two, eight by eight, and
then, too many to count.

We watch them swim and
swirl in a sandy bottomed pool
of water and know.

That day, we were all winners.