Life is a salmon ladder

 1/17/12   Life is a salmon ladder

By Kathie Houchens (copyright 2012)

Compelled to swim upstream,

something inside

forces me onward, upward

like the salmon

doomed

in the end to die,

but

out of that death new life

is a promise,

a reason for being.

My salmon-ladder life story chart

marks

the points where

effort and energy,

determination and grit,

and just showing up

moved me

into a place of readiness

for the next challenge.

The losses,

looking back, loom large

on the landscape of my life.

 but

there is a balance, too.

Joys jump out

when

my vision clears and I

look

once again with expectant eyes,

with open heart.

I see the love into which I

was born

threaded like spun gold

through all the days and nights,

the sleeping, the waking,

the babies, the puppies,

the travel and the adventure,

but most of all the companionship.

Throughout my whole life

I have hurdled myself up

the fish ladder

in good company.

I am not alone

and that is good.