The cleric-poet Andrew Young describes a fishy phenomenon with his customary close observation and original use of language.
The piece can be found in his Selected Poems (Carcanet, £9.95).
THE SALMON-LEAP
Leaves, and not birds, now flit,
Brighter than yellow wagtail and coal-tit,
Or on the water lie
Making a sunset of the fishes' sky.
Autumn for salmon-trout
Is spring, and Io Hymen boulders shout,
Spate drawing them to spawn
Where on high hills the river keeps its dawn.
From rock-lipt lynn to lynn,
Shaking the ferns and grasses with their din,
The cascades overflow
And pour in pools to rise as boiling snow;
Tossing their bodies bare
The salmon-trout are seen tasting our air,
For stronger is the flood
That rages in their few small drops of blood.
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