Hope is a herring leaping, though the falls are high and gulls wait by the plunge pool. Though other fish cluster below, backed up in eddies and crowding the stream, the herring that leaps is all quicksilver, blue backed and shimmering above the swift dark water,
It gives everything to instinct all in a moment when it shoots the flume. Nothing less than total commitment, risking all on a single cast, will break the bonds of the running stream and carry the fish above the falls.
Whether the gull swoops or the force of the stream forces it back to its fellows, the herring that leaps is a fastball rising, and we at the herring run rise too in wide-eyed wonder, willing it to clear the wall.
Comments