Salmon, come upriver

Something has to be understood.
We are, all of us, older.
Salmon, come upriver.
Something must be withstood.
Some hands must be thrown skyward.
Everyone afraid of the same thing:
let us meet it, somehow, with our power.
In the ground itself, not in our telling of it,
lives the mineral we need to stand fast.
Salmon, come upriver.