The Bridge Review: Merrimack Valley Culture

Paul Marion

Salmon Ladders

From mountain drip to salt
the old wide streamer
slaps rhythms in its wash.
Salmon-packed for native camps,
it saw brick giants churn the rush
to a hydro-science of grinding power.
Choked in mill crap and slime,
the current kept repeating, slugging through the valley,
foaming at the falls, drawn to the clam flats.

New devices purify,
and ladders will get salmon back schooling
in Merrimack rapids and basins,
the florid water rippling under its skin
with pink meat, gills, and fins of slippery fish
whose gleamy eyes look upstream.

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Copyright © 2001 by The Bridge Review: Merrimack Valley Culture and University of Massachusetts Lowell. All Rights Reserved for compilation. Rights revert to individual contributors following publication. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any manner without written permission from the publisher and individual contributor.