last summer made us weep.
The skunk cabbage told of this.
Our abnormalities, that odd number
of eyes
do not make us see any better.
my father and I.
This year’s undertaking was planned
and implemented considering all
future climate scenarios we’ve fished with before.
But there is a clear message
as we fish for spring kings knowing
our winter was warmer, wetter,
and snow melt came faster and earlier.
Every morning, the snow level
on the Three Sisters, the mountain range
in view of our fishcamp,
understand magnitude.
Storm events scour stream beds,
rain flushes our homes.
At night we read charts
showing a sea-level rise,
and I dream of enough oxygen
to fill our gills with a cold water refugia,
and nearshore where we once stood
wrapped in a food web, salmon hearts
still pulse in our hands.
