Michael Shepherd
When I Awaken to Myself

Return to Source

We are like salmon, swimming back upstream;
Leaping against waterfalls that thwart,
Cut and bruised; but strong; our only dream
Return to source; no thought save source of thought;
And in that fight, our iron age turns to bronze,
And we to heroes, in a war of soul,
As nature seeks the nature it had once;
Though wholly lost, remembering the whole.
We silver salmon, sparkling as the sun
Shines on our fierce and loving enterprise:
To rear our children where the world is one;
The source remembered, nature's greatest prize.
The golden age is ageless in its gleam
And we, like salmon, swimming back upstream.