Salmon did return—
			                      appeared at the base
		               of the dam
for five years
                                 after
                                              the last concrete
              poured into granite.				

	     This is, of course,
			                  	                a process
like any other, turning
                                               the flood-	
	     waters back, 
                                              bucking timber
tearing rail ties 
                                              out to clear 
          high country
		                                              for reservoir.

	    I read, once, there were 
six hundred thousand 
                               salmon returning 
                                                to Kettle Falls 
                  to spawn—surging 
over cataracts,
                                  feeding the inland tribes.

                  It was something
like an elegy,
			                         the last gathering 
	        of Colville 
		                at Kettle. A carnival,
 a Saturday night
                                smoker, Native and white 
men boxing until dawn, 
		                                    until six 
                                   chiefs mourned farewell
over the loudspeakers.
	                                           Then the band 
	        played “America 
		                                the Beautiful,”
then electricity
                                  passed over 
the inundated villages.	

                I watched
		                                   decades later, the Falls
                                 reemerge
	          during a nightly laser show.

A violet beam projecting
                                                                   a chinook	
                 turning back,
			                         somehow 
swimming through 
                                                                    the dam itself.