Liberties There's nothing Artificial about our Intelligence

How would a man write about a salmon?

Abstract. Broad strokes. Shades of secondary

colors: Pinks, teals, grays. Mirrors of himself.

Fins moving independently to guide

His naval journey. When the clear shock of

Freshwater passes through his open throat

Causing a mute bubble celebration

To trail his path upstream towards metaphor,

Towards the life cycle, towards the universe;

Upstream, he observes life and death

But he does not embody life and death,

He does not become life and death, he does

Not heal from the universe, he does not

Hear the crunch of the foot from nearby bears

Who wait at the grey hilt of the river

Also with wide, open throats that prepare

For the advancing salmon, the nearly

Here winter, the early dusk afternoons,

The greying foliage, the hardening

Shorelines calcified, frozen, littered with

Bones and beaks from last summer’s pink cycle;

This Titian conversion from salt to spring;

Patient, noble. The fish has no mind

it is all muscle

That swims and eats

and fights and lives and dies;

It is something else when it is observed;

It is not a metaphor for healing.

It is not kin. It is not legacy.

It is written about by a man; yes,

The way a man would write about a man.