绿绿's is a very thought-provoking poem. Thanks for sharing!
Watching a salmon run can be awe inspiring.
We visited Alaska in 2003 and stayed for a couple of days at a bed and breakfast near a power plant on a river not too far from Valdez. I thought I'd try fishing on the river so I asked the hostess if she had something like a fishing rod I could borrow. She said, "sure", and pointed to a lined fishing rod resting by the fence. I then asked where I could buy some fish bait. She said: "You need no fish bait. Just go and cast that fishing pole by the river and you'll catch yourself some fish."
I figured it'd be rude to question the hostess' wisdom, so I took the fishing rod, which had a huge hook tied to the end of the line, and went to the river.
The text in 绿绿's post contains this description: "Gazing down into a channel jammed with fish may be one of the Last Frontier's most iconic experiences. At the climax of a run, salmon might be arrayed bank-to-bank, like an armada of blushing torpedoes."
And this was exactly what I saw: The river was jammed with an armada of pink salmon. Instead of blushing torpedoes, though, I somehow thought of a whole pot of dumplings cooking in boiling water; a huge pot, that is. And catching them was really a piece of cake; all I needed to do was fling the big hook into the river and I'd catch one almost everytime. This kind of fishing proved to be very boring, though, and I gave up in no time.
