Above The Falls by John Beaton Part I: in the "Tight Lines" poetry series. Rockslides. Fields of boulders. Criss-cross deadfall — Snow-covered logs I tightrope-walk to gain the river’s upper reaches. Here the headwall will shield the sun by one o'clock. I strain   my eyes to see. The water’s low and clear — No rain or glacial melt — and soon I spot some blue-grey apparitions in the glare, forty or fifty summer-runs. They’ve fought   their way to wild December headwater pools in this high valley where there are no bears, just herds of elk, cougar, and packs of wolves, for there are no salmon here — the river's stairs   have waterfalls too tall for them to leap — and the steelhead, bred to hurdle those cascades, have learned to swim too far, to lie too deep for sated bears from salmonberry glades.   The valley-fog has thinned — the mountain-tops now float above the mist in sunlit snow; and here the snow is churned — an elk herd sleeps on this part of the floodplain, bull by cow   and calf. And though the wolves and cougars live by feasting on their flesh, enough are left to let this herd of Roosevelt elk survive. I swing my fly across a broken drift   to spark a swirl of silver. Spectral backs appear, ephemeral against the pebbles, then slide into the seam between the slack’s upswellings and the inflow’s stream of bubbles.   The light-shafts from the ridge give one last flare — As shadow falls it seems the ghosts have run the headwall cataract to disappear beyond all fang and barb with the winter sun.   Hatches Magazine Subscription Price: $6.95 for each issue The Premiere issue is ready for shipping & the Fall 2008 issue will be available September 1st. Hatches Magazine Subscription Price: $6.95 for each issue The Premiere issue is ready for shipping & the Fall 2008 issue will be available September 1st.