Whitefish Run

Whitefish Run

They speed upstream to spawn after dark

slick as ice and pearly white:

whitefish from Lake Michigan’s depths

torpedo home.

With sure instincts

with DNA of generations

with chartreuse eggs; with white milt

their sleek white shapes streak

through dark river waters

now starting to freeze.

It’s been this way in the Great Lakes

since Edenic times

when Ice Age glaciers melted away.

And now in this coldest December

anyone alive can remember

fishermen risk a walk the piers

wear cleats on their boots

tie themselves to something solid.

They jig rigged lines on the river bottom

and sometimes land a sleek, slick, delicious fish

while west winds howl.

 

                               --Barbara Spring

 

From my book Sophia's Lost and Found: Poems of Above and Below

 

Available at Amazon.com, bn.com etc.