In a Diner Above the Lamoille River
In a Diner Above the Lamoille River
© 2010 by Greg Delanty
The rocks below on the river trail foam fins
as if they swim upstream along with the salmon
returning to their spawning grounds, leaping
falls, freshets, the ancient anonymous struggle.
The fish age instantly to mottled old-timers,
dying in the nursing pools of their birth waters.
A tour group of elderly are the only other diners,
their skin mottled not unlike the salmon.
They seem to get along. They jaw about the weather,
the water height, the amount to tip.
One woman’s trembling hand fills the diner questionnaire
with praise. I scribble this on the back of mine,
and tip the kind waitress a little more than usual.
She laid their steaming bowls like a priestess setting
her libation on the altar of trembling elder gods.