Salmon

The sun reflects off the water –
transforming dull, gray ripples
into a fabulous blanket of shimmering diamonds.

I am told that you’re running below the surface
in your annual, heroic but tragic feat.
I have come for the orca,
but the orca has come for you.
Her graceful, terrible plunge
serves as your doom and my delight.

I do not like this irony.
___________

I hate death –

be it actual or anticipated,
be it a plant or an entire forest,
a squirrel on the road or my beloved dog,
my grandmother or my husband,
and worst of all, the dread of my own death.

I hate death.

The thought or sight of even the smallest dead creature
strikes me with the most severe existential dread –
a deep ache in my stomach, nausea,
and finally a speechless, numbing fear
in the face of my own powerlessness.

I hate death.

It isn’t meant to be this way, but it is.
And as Gandolf says in his usual wisdom,
“It is not for you to decide the time
but what to do with the time that has been given to you.”
I must choose, even though

I hate death.

Will I become paralyzed with fear
and wait in the fetal position
for my inevitable fate of death?
Or will I persevere with the salmon,
dance with the orca, and shimmer with the sea?