The Priest
Anglesey, Wales, 61 A.D.
In row after row on the beach, along dark waters topped
by small whitecaps, the Welsh tribesmen stood in tartans of ochre and sea
green, shouting and waving brightly painted wooden shields and long
swords, their bodies tattooed in swirling blues, their hair washed in lime
and pulled into spikes; between them dark-robed women with torches flailed
their arms and bodies as if possessed, kicking their legs obscenely high,
their long, disheveled hair flowing behind them—the falls of rapids,
seaweed, snakes—their torchlight casting shadows across the beach and
over the warriors they danced through. Across the straits, at its
narrowest point only a few score yards away, even the most experienced
legionnaires found it hard to look fully on the scene, either glancing
down or away, squeezing their javelins or rubbing the hilts of their short
swords in silence; the more terrified among them trembled, their eyes
rolling in their sockets like cattle or swine in the face of these women
who looked like the furies of legend.
The Roman general Suetonius Paulinus rode his horse hard
to the front of the lines, where his legion waited to embark the
flat-bottomed ferries that would transport them across the Menai Straits
and to their enemy on the opposite shore. When he arrived, he saw what the
delay was about. But neither the tribesmen nor the women worried him as
much as their priests, the Druids.
The white-robed magicians were the reason he had been
called there in the first place. He had fought them before, in the
hardwood forests of Gaul, but he had never seen the kind he now faced: men
in flowing robes the color of goat’s milk, their arms lifted in
supplication, palms up, eyes pitched so heavenward that nothing but the
whites showed—and their lips moving in growling imprecations that like
gathering thunderclouds gained power, a moaning of wind and invective. The
Romans couldn’t understand the language, but they understood its tone
and gesture—these Druids were calling down curses upon them, imploring
their gods to aid their unarmored warriors and strike down the
gleaming-helmeted, mail-clad legionnaires.
Suetonius meant to send a message to the entire British
island by destroying the last vestiges of Druidism in this last stronghold
of Druidic power, to show that new gods oversaw the affairs of Britain
now, Roman gods. He meant to tear down the altars of human sacrifice and
chop down every tree in the Druids’ sacred oak grove.
“Load the first squad onto the boats!” he ordered.
The infantry was already organized in rows behind the waiting craft, those
with javelins first and then those with short swords, with the mounted
cavalry behind them. One soldier, sweat glistening along his hairless
upper lip, repeatedly stamped his sandaled feet and muttered to himself.
An older veteran beside him gripped his javelin solidly with glazed, fixed
eyes on the other shore; he coughed suddenly, his face red, and then
resumed staring, not even bothering to wipe the spittle from his chin.
Their turn came and their unit boarded the craft, which
was shoved out into the shifting tidal waters. The boat’s bow rocked up
from the force of the waves and crashed down hard, sending spray into the
faces of the legionnaires. Across the straits, the Druids remained
motionless, hurling out words with the force of arrows; as the Romans
approached, the chanting became louder, the women even more clearly
defined, their bare muscular legs occasionally slashing out from
underneath their robes. Before the boat could land, the Welsh warriors ran
into the shallow water and began slashing at the men inside. With shields
raised the Romans leaped forward as they had in so many battles across the
British island, fighting as a tightly linked unit, breaking the enemy’s
charge with their heavy javelins. Iron pierced and cut flesh, spouting
blood like gruesome Roman fountains into the basin of the earth, which
soaked it up quickly at first before becoming saturated. One tribesmen
crushed his long sword upon the head of the young soldier who had stamped
and muttered; blood and pungent fluids gushed from the wound, while brains
and shards of skull flew into the shield and face of the older veteran
behind him.
But the boats kept coming, unloading squad after squad
of infantry, then the cavalry, and the tribesmen were pushed back from the
beach. The cavalry kicked up clumps of blood-clotted mud as they galloped
onto shore, their fear of the torch-bearing women emboldening them to
fury. They herded the women like animals and drove them into their own
ranks, and soon many of the Welsh were pinned in a ring of their own fire.
The chanting Druids were either cut down in the first wave or chased into
the thick forest and killed.
All except the head priest. He stood in the middle of
the battle, so focused on heaven, concentrated on shaping the language he
believed would destroy his enemies, committed to breathe his last breath
on the soil of his fathers, that he was rooted, immobile, moving nothing
but his lips. The legionnaires at first thought he was protected by
powerful magic and avoided him, but when it was clear they would win, a
mounted soldier charged the lone Druid and beheaded him with a single
blow. The blade cut so cleanly that the head simply toppled off, and the
body, rather than being knocked backward, remained standing for several
seconds, a headless marble statue, before falling to the earth.
Caernarvonshire, Wales, 1886
I
Alwyn Powell and his family—his wife, two young
children, and two brothers—walked down the dirt path from their cottage
to the Calvinist Methodist church. Behind them, the rising sun still lay
behind Mount Snowdon, the highest, craggiest peak among the many that
formed the surrounding Caernarvonshire Hills; above them, the oaks knitted
tightly over the path formed a tunnel softly illumined in bluish-gray
light, cool and quiet. Alwyn breathed this in and listened to the
trickling of the River Seiont in the woods to his right. Countless rills
sprang from Snowdon’s face, pooled in the twin lakes of Llanberis, and
fed the Seiont, which worked its way down through the uplands and toward
the gently undulating plain on which Alwyn’s cottage stood, running
directly on the other side of his pasture and, just a few miles west,
draining into the Menai Straits, with bleak, largely treeless Anglesey
beyond.
Alwyn heard a faint splash and smiled, his nostrils
flaring as they did when his smile was genuine, broad and full of large,
square teeth. Seeing this, his brother Madoc reached out and slapped him
on the shoulder.
“How are you doing?” Madoc asked in Welsh. Alwyn
glanced over and took a deep breath before nodding several times.
“Fine, just fine.”
“How’s the farm?”
“Fine,” Alwyn said, as if he had just
answered the same question twice. “I expect a good catch of salmon this
year. The fish are already running.”
Madoc saw his brother look left, at his wife Mona, who
held the hand of their two-year-old son Gareth while carrying
six-month-old Evan in a basket slung over her shoulders; Alwyn then
quickly arced his head up and around as if taking in the vault of the
surrounding woods.
“So old Vaughan is still letting you use the weir on
his property?” Madoc pressed.
“He’s been good to our family.”
“Is that a ‘yes’ or a ‘no?’”
“Yes. It’s a yes.” This time Alwyn shot a prickly
look directly at Madoc, who, while sensing his brother didn’t want to
talk about money or politics in front of his wife, couldn’t resist
asking one more question.
“I hope that preacher of yours gives a sermon as good
as the articles he writes for Tyst. How’d you simple country folk
get so lucky to keep him?”
“Like us, he doesn’t want any of your industrial
ways,” Alwyn said, signaling the end of any conversation on the subject.
He still held ambivalent feelings about his brother leaving to become a
slate miner in Llanberis and didn’t want to ruin this Sunday visit with
his unprocessed thoughts. They walked in silence for a minute before Madoc
turned suddenly to his right and threw his arms around Taliesin’s
shoulders.
“Ay! Do you think we’ll ever net another catch like
our brother here?” he cried. Mona laughed, though Alwyn only slightly
smiled. He had been taking care of Taliesin since their parents had died
two years before. It troubled him when people made fun of his youngest
brother, especially his own relatives, whom he felt should also offer
protection, though he knew Madoc would beat senseless any man other than
himself who dared taunt Taliesin. After all, he hadn’t chosen his
situation, or his name.
“You poor dumb half-wit!” Madoc said affectionately,
tousling the dark, wiry hair on Taliesin’s head, which appeared
oversized in relation to his short, tightly compacted body. He opened his
mouth in a lopsided grin and worked his jaw up and down, thick wrinkles
creasing his high forehead, his wide, unblinking eyes gleaming from within
deeply recessed, purplish sockets. “Do you remember how our father
always used to tell that story?” Madoc asked, turning again to Alwyn.
Alwyn smiled, for it was his favorite memory: his father
in woolen trousers and a flannel shirt, sleeves rolled up, whittling some
trinket with his jackknife while leaning forward on a three-legged stool,
or idly snapping the blade open and shut, the fire in the hearth casting
shadows over Alwyn and Madoc where they sat on the cottage’s dirt floor,
shadows in which they could see the story acted out:
A shape-shifting wise woman named Ceridwen once brewed a
potion giving all knowledge to the one who drank the first three drops. A
young boy charged with helping stoke the fires beneath the cauldron was
stirring this brew when three scalding drops spilled onto his thumb, which
he hastily thrust into his mouth. Instantly possessing all knowledge, he
knew, among everything else, that Ceridwen would be angry, so he ran away.
She chased him, but with his new powers he became a hare. She became a
greyhound. In turn he became a trout, then a sparrow, she an otter, then a
hawk. Finally, he became a grain of wheat, but she became a black hen and
ate him. Soon after, she grew pregnant with this young boy. When he was
born, he was so beautiful she couldn’t bear to harm him as she had
originally wanted to, and instead sewed him into a greased leather bag and
cast him adrift on the ocean.
At that time lived an unlucky young man named Elphin. In
order to help change his luck, his father charged him with checking his
salmon weir. Elphin found no salmon, but one day he pulled a leather bag
from the stakes of the weir and discovered a baby boy inside. But this was
no ordinary baby, for he began talking to Elphin, prophesying of riches
that would be his if he were to save the young child, who turned out to be
Taliesin, the greatest of Wales’ great bards and later a member of
Merdydd’s court, or Merlin of Arthurian legend.
In Welsh, tal iesin means “radiant brow,”
which was exactly how Alwyn’s youngest brother’s had looked when his
head first popped out: a long, high forehead shining with birth fluids,
large, bright eyes taking in the scene as if fish out of water. Alwyn’s
mother couldn’t help crying out the name of the famous bard she had
grown up hearing about, she was so taken by the beauty of her baby, his
seeming intelligence, the great future she saw for him. It quickly became
apparent, however, that this baby was deaf, incapable of
speech—“touched,” as the doctor said, “an idiot” in the common
language—and the couple quickly asserted his Christian name was Jacob,
but by then the word was out and had become something of a cruel joke to
the rest of the rural community, who so persistently whispered the name
“Taliesin” that it became what he was known by ever after, though he,
of course, never heard it spoken.
These thoughts always made Alwyn sad. But he felt good
that at least he had no need of finding a baby boy among the rushes; he
had done quite well by his wife, who had already birthed two strong boys
the ordinary way. Alwyn had carved eight balls in the Welsh love spoon he
had presented Mona, each ball in the ball-and-chain design representing a
well-rounded life hoped for—six more, if his desires came true, eight
Welsh sons and daughters in all to bolster the dwindling population of his
rural community. Things would change. He would make sure of that. He
reached into his pocket and squeezed his father’s jackknife.
♦♦♦
The Calvinist Methodist church was a small, century-old
stone building beside an unfenced cemetery in the woods. The Powells
quietly sat themselves in high-backed wooden pews in the nave, Alwyn
seating Taliesin directly to his right, placing his hands firmly on both
his brother’s shoulders and twisting them so that they were squared
forward, as if he were positioning a mannequin in a tailor’s shop
window.
The choir walked down the center aisle to take their
place in the chancel, followed by the pastor. He remained standing at the
pulpit, looking out over his congregation, his large eyes with more pupil
than iris, dark like a hawk’s. In general, Reverend Davies was dark,
with short-cropped raven hair, thick black eyebrows, and a face that even
clean-shaven glowed a waxy slate-blue. The son of a local wagon driver, he
was of medium height, thin but strong like the farmers and miners he
ministered to, had lived his whole life with, save his recent theological
training. When he opened his Bible and prayed the invocation, the choir
followed with a hymn—a Welsh hymn with Welsh words and harmonies, rich,
full, and spirited, accompanied by the throaty pulse of the pedal organ.
Afterward, the entire congregation joined in the singing of another hymn,
of almost equal quality to that of the choir alone. While the others sang,
Taliesin gripped the top of the pew in front of him and rocked from side
to side.
When Reverend Davies came to his sermon, he began by
reading a passage from Paul’s letter to the Romans. He spoke in broad
terms as he warmed up, using the dialectical language of justice and
injustice, right and wrong, life and death. As he moved deeper into his
homily, his countenance took on a new strength and hue, his voice the
fresh timbre of rushing water in an unfettered stream, and when he pounded
the pulpit, his thick, leather-bound Bible jumped from its place like a
fish on a hook. He slowly worked himself into a hwyl, literally
“sail of a ship,” which made him appear as if buffeted by a shifting
wind in a rocky hollow, his words sometimes rising in pitch and tempo like
a song or gusting in intervals like a chant.
He spoke of the clergy of the Anglican church, of their
love of worldly works and how their desire for riches like thorns choked
the seeds they sowed. He spoke of the merchants and landlords, English
schooled and bred, who traded the lives of Welshmen like the money
changers in the temples of Jerusalem, and how like Jesus the people should
overturn the tables, this harsh rule of a land stolen long ago.
“This land is ours!” he shouted, his face purplish
red, his sinewy forearms protruding from the sleeves of his robe. “We
have earned it through our toil, as God saw fit for our original sin. We
are the chosen people, for as Paul writes, ‘it is not the children of
the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are
reckoned as descendants.’ As God raised up Pharaoh to show His power
through him, so did God raise up the landed gentry and their allies in the
established church that His power might be revealed when we answer His
call and claim our place on the earth as did Moses. As Paul writes, ‘God
has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.’”
Taliesin opened his mouth and emitted a sound, one slow,
nearly indiscernible breath: the lowest audible organ note, the rattle and
rasp in a dying man’s throat. Inside him a
feeling: breath deep tingling in my chest under the large dark trees with
pointed leaves and nuts fall on my head my mouth opens tingling in my
throat cool dark and light shines through the windows the light on the
water below the hands of my brother on my shoulders a smell: the muddy
banks of the river
up stands that man with dark caterpillars over his eyes
a hawk sitting on a branch by the river pictures: people stand up sit down
people eyes closed people mouths open birds only not eating and tingling
from the floor the great black machine on wheels on snakes of gunmetal
above the river the bench in my hands a snake no the neck of a chicken i
broke a feeling: my body a pulsing chicken i walk to that circle of trees
i don’t really my throat warm and bigger my head that foamy brown water
my brother let me drink no more blood under my feet and fingers everyone
sits i sit a picture: the window the sky water blood: chickens cattle fish
grass the sun a man hangs behind the man with black caterpillars over his
eyes a hawk from here blood not blood paint on a dead tree a memory: no
people i touch it and run the sun behind the land beyond the salty smell
taste water the air cold water in my eyes why is he sleeping on the wall?
the man with black caterpillars over his eyes a hawk
opens his mouth a picture: the mouth of my new sister pulled up water in
her eyes everyone looks he looks back his mouth open wide wider waves his
arms hits the tall table in front of him: a ripple through my feet some
people water in their eyes he looked right at
me! feelings: my heart beats faster tingling in
my chest and everyone nods their heads i nod my head that foamy brown
water that man with eyes that dive in water smells: different cattle sheep
heads in grass hides rings of water bloom around a stone a wolf no herds
slow with sun then quick with water
everyone stands i stand mouths open a feeling: the sun
water little suns i take off my clothes i must the man hanging on a tree
no i hit my chest tingling snakes of gunmetal my ribs my stomach
desire: tingling snakes of gunmetal my throat
♦♦♦
When they returned to the cottage, Mona disappeared
inside to begin preparing dinner while Taliesin sat on his haunches by the
whitewashed wall and watched the shadows of butterflies play across the
uneven surface of the stone. Alwyn and Madoc moved to the low stake fence
at the edge of the pasture.
“The slate industry’s booming right now,” Madoc
said. “Llanberis is better than what you’re making it out to be. A lot
of good men make up that town. And singers? You’d be hard-pressed to
find a place in the choir, even with your tenor.”
Alwyn snorted and ran his fingers through hair the
texture and color of wheat at sunset, letting his hand rest at the nape of
his neck. “But we grew up here,” he said softly. Then he scrunched up
his face and gave his neck a vigorous scratching.
“It’s not that far up the road.”
“It’s not the distance. It’s a whole new way of
life.”
“A lot of people are taking up that life. Times are
hard. Farm prices look to be down again this year.”
“I know that,” Alwyn said, irritated. He reached for
his jackknife, thinking, We’re going to need a good run of salmon to
get us through the winter. His farm was at its limits already,
producing corn, beef, mutton, wool, milk, and cheese for market with
little left over for his own family, their income and food supply helped
by catches of salmon and brown trout, which he smoked himself. He
couldn’t imagine life without the rocky soil under his feet and
fingernails, his sturdy Welsh coracle under him on the silvery stretch
that connected him with the sea.
“Don’t you miss life on the farm?” he asked.
“Of course, sometimes,” Madoc answered. “But not
much.” Just then the sound of a whistle floated down from the direction
of Snowdon, and in a few moments a train locomotive steamed past, pulling
several passenger cars and trailing thick black ash behind it. The line
ran along the River Seiont to Caernarvonshire, connecting that coastal
city with Llanberis. “See? Exciting things are happening, and I’m glad
to be part of it. We can be part of it, Alwyn. The sun is setting on old-worlders
like Vaughan.”
“He’s been good to our family for years,” Alwyn
said, idly clicking his jackknife open and shut.
“He’s been milking our family for years—and by the
way, who are you voting for this year?”
“I know what you’re thinking—”
“Yes, by God, but he’s done it before, and the only
reason he didn’t do it to us is… I don’t know why.”
“Because he might be a decent man.”
“Decent! Does decent mean throwing a family out of the
only house they’ve known for generations just because they voted against
the interests of the Englishman?”
“It happened once. Others were worse—are worse.”
“Once is worse enough. I’ll be damned if I know why
you stand up for the man.”
“Watch your language around my house, at least on a
Sunday! And it’s because I like it here, and want to stay here.”
“If farm prices drop any lower, you won’t have a
choice.”
Alwyn suddenly shifted the blade of his jackknife so
that it was pointed down, and with all his frustration stuck it into the
wooden gatepost. It quivered, sunk a quarter inch in the swirling grain.
“I need a beer,” he said.
“On a Sunday?” Madoc mocked.
Alwyn hitched his head toward the cottage. “Don’t
tell Mona.”
“And Reverend Davies?”
“I’d rather face his fire and brimstone than
Mona’s.”
The two walked past Taliesin and disappeared into the
cellar, where a crate of cork-stopped bottles full of thick brown
“medicine” was stored. When they reappeared, each with a bottle in his
hands, Taliesin hugged his arms close to his chest and began spinning
around and around, his eyes shut, his broad, low brow knitted in
concentration.
“What’s he doing?” Madoc asked.
Alwyn, afraid Taliesin might somehow attract his
wife’s attention, tucked his bottle under an armpit and with his other
arm grasped his youngest brother by a shoulder, stopping him. He and Madoc
then began moving toward the river.
“I let him try some ale once and made the mistake of
turning away for a moment,” Alwyn said. “When I looked back, he’d
drunk it all. Poor fellow; he got sick from it. He was so drunk he spun
around in circles and fell over. He does that sometimes now. In his poor
simple head he must connect it with something—if he even thinks at
all.” Alwyn shrugged and looked back at the cottage. Taliesin was
watching them.
♦♦♦
The buggy that pulled into the Powells’ farm could
only have carried one rider. Most of Alwyn’s fellow tenant farmers
didn’t own a buggy, and if they did, they weren’t as fine as this one,
with full running sideboards and a fresh coat of paint. Madoc had returned
to Llanberis the night before to begin another week in the mine; Alwyn and
Mona had just finished dinner. The slight sound of horses’ hooves and
creaking wheels was enough to let them know they had a visitor, whom they
greeted before he had stepped down. They ushered their landlord into the
cool of the cottage, Alwyn sitting him down while Mona fixed a pot of tea.
Once a year was all Alwyn could ever remember seeing
William Vaughan, but so many of those years had piled up that he truly
felt like an old family friend. Many of the other landlords had stopped
collecting their own rent long ago, but Vaughan still prided himself on
doing the chore personally, something Alwyn respected.
“How are you holding up, Alwyn?” Vaughan asked in
English after thanking Mona for the tea and biscuit she served him.
“We’re doing well, thank you, Mr. Vaughan,” Alwyn
responded, also in English. Then he added in a different quality of voice,
higher-pitched, it seemed to him, “The salmon are already running. It
should be a good season.”
Vaughan nodded slowly, his eyes not quite focused on
Alwyn.
“Your father was the best salmon fisherman this county
has ever seen. It was a rare autumn or spring his smokehouse wasn’t
full. He was a gentleman. We always saw eye to eye on things. Except,”
Vaughan coughed dryly, “for that one unfortunate election.”
Alwyn was disturbed at this shift in conversation so
early on. He had been hoping to exchange some pleasantries, pay his rent,
and avoid the topic of politics altogether.
“I see that Davies boy has become a preacher,”
Vaughan continued. “How is he doing?”
“Some say he has the Holy Spirit in him,” Alwyn said
cautiously. “Some say he just has a young man’s zeal.”
“I’ve heard he’s a radical.”
Alwyn shifted in his chair, but the creaking seemed so
loud to him that he immediately stopped.
“He speaks his mind, and I respect that. But talk is
just talk. I don’t believe it makes a man a radical.”
“In Ireland, no. In Wales—well, you know what it
means to live here.”
“Mona and I hope to die here.” Alwyn nodded his head
at the walls and ceiling to indicate that “here” meant specifically
“this cottage.”
“I don’t understand this trend toward Liberal
politics the last few years,” Vaughan kept talking as if he hadn’t
heard Alwyn. “Your father always voted Conservative until the last
election. And now people wonder why we’re not doing so well. Twenty-nine
Liberals in parliament to only four Conservatives? And our Prime Minister
giving credence to Cymru Fydd with his highly inappropriate remarks
promoting the Welsh language?”
“I wasn’t aware Gladstone supported Cymru Fydd.”
“He’s creating an environment that makes all of this
talk about Welsh home rule possible, just like Davies.” Alwyn noted the
absence of “Reverend.” Vaughan shook his head so forcefully, a strand
of hair fell from its place on his shiny pink scalp and down over his
eyes. Alwyn was surprised to see how white it had become in only a year.
Vaughan smoothed it back into place with long, age-spotted fingers.
“Twenty-nine Liberals, and farm prices only keep going down. Money
matters are a complicated thing, and best left to people who understand
them. I’m sure you’ll think about that when you vote this election.”
Though he hadn’t finished his tea or biscuit, he stood
up, signaling it was time to move on. Alwyn disappeared into another room
and returned with a small, flat canvas sack, which he gave to Vaughan
before shaking hands with him.
“My family has had good relations with yours for over
a hundred years,” Vaughan said sadly, as if it reflected a fact of
history and not the present moment. “I’ve always liked your family,
Alwyn.” With a deep breath he looked quickly around the small cottage
and then left.
II
Alwyn walked along the clear waters of the River Seiont
on his way to check his weir for salmon. The sky above him was the
polished blue of a new rifle barrel, which the water reflected in uneven
ripples. He had left his cottage dressed in trousers, vest, and jacket but
had since stripped off his jacket under the simmering sun and rolled up
the sleeves of his coarse white shirt, exposing thick brown arms covered
with tightly sprung, reddish-blonde curls. In his hands he carried a
wicker lunch basket, with a much larger basket for his hoped-for catch
slung over his shoulders. In his back pocket was a small wooden club used
to kill salmon that the Welsh fishermen called “the priest.”
All along the narrow wooded glen of the Seiont, the
flora of Wales grew in profusion, beeches and maples and oaks, colorful
asters and Michaelmas daisies, decorating the river with leaves and petals
that tumbled over the rocky bed and trailed in eddies and whirlpools, or
in the small backwashes that formed along the bank. Once Alwyn heard the
rustle of a foraging animal on the high bluffs. Aside from his clothing
and the occasional train that steamed by, it was a scene that had been
played out exactly the same for centuries.
A splashing sound made his heart leap, and he turned his
head quickly to see a large fishtail disappear back into the river.
Salmon!
Alwyn moved more quickly to a small rapids near a bend
in the river, where he veered along the shore of a small tributary. A
short way up the tributary, salmon leaped against a small falls that
tumbled over mossy rocks, blocking the fishes’ path to their ancient
birthing grounds in a pool a mile upstream. The Vaughan family had owned
the surrounding land for over a century, and this was where William
Vaughan had allowed first Alwyn’s father and then Alwyn to maintain a
salmon weir in exchange for a smoked portion of the catch. The weir was
full of a wriggling mass of silvery scales, polished chain mail. Alwyn
already gripped the priest in his thick right hand and was moving forward,
but he stopped himself for a moment to bow his head and say a prayer, his
lips silently moving.
He then opened his eyes and marched toward the weir, its
stakes angled like spears. He stepped into the chaos of water and
fishtails and brought the priest down hard upon the head of the nearest
salmon. It made a dull smacking noise like a hand slapping rock, and the
fish quivered and ceased moving. Alwyn’s initial excitement ceased in
the duty before him. His arm moved up again and came down. Again. And
again. The water continued to rush past him. It flowed only one way. The
salmon moved in only one direction, the other way. Eventually, the weir
was empty, but it would be full tomorrow.
♦♦♦
one slow deep breath under the circle of trees with
pointed leaves and nuts eyes closed smells: cool earth dry leaves mellow
decay mud from the river baked with sun fish scales on the wind shifts
slightest salt tanginess leaves rustle breath deep in chest eyes open
salmon leaping the sun a fire many small fires on the water splashing up
down skirts twirling a feeling: mouth turned up shaking in my belly
tingling in my throat head that foamy brown water body shaking my new
sister around the fire legs kicking skirt quick swish right quick swish
left eyes open wider so bright splash
splash salmon in the water weaving through the fires dark forms swimming
in light in air then gone
breath quick quicker my brother by the water a feeling:
water in my eyes fists beating on the ground tingling up my arms he walks
water splashing salmon rainbows in the water no one stands no one around
but i stand wave my arms desire: see me in the
circle of trees with pointed leaves and nuts above the river brother! i
jump wave he walks turns head the salmon river frothy white walks up the
thinner river by the mud row of stakes in water a memory: row of bigger
stakes in ground and cattle salmon tails quick right quick left my brother
grabs the short thick stick from his pocket and no no no no no no no the
stick hits the salmon on the head the tail stops the stick hits a salmon
on the head the tail stops feelings: tripping on a log falling can’t
breathe can’t breathe the foamy brown water from my mouth a pump no
desire my belly moving again again again a taste: rancid meat i jump up
down wave my arms desire: tingling in my throat i open my mouth no
no no no no
eyes closed: warmth on face then shadow warmth shadow
warmth head that foamy brown water breath quick quicker then falling black
black stars a picture: a silver fish leaps from silver water a feeling: me
Originally published in Rock
& Sling
Copyright © 2004, 2006 by Jeff Fearnside
