Journal

Bury Me Standing

We’re all dead. We’re all lying in the clover,
black-eyed with regrets and ‘tectonic grievances’.
We’re all turning the colour of time,
each breath a century, each heartbeat a lifetime long.
We’re all tunneling towards an imperceptible something.
Where we’ll find under the earth urns and raw uranium.
Under the ground run motherlodes and the spunk of glaciers.
Down in the pits, the earthen bowels, the mythical hollows,
we’re all dog-dead and petition resurrection.
In the house of mosses we lie. In the ruins of our era.

 

Bruce McRae, a Canadian musician currently residing on Salt Spring Island BC, is a multiple
Pushcart nominee with over 1,500 poemspublished internationally in magazines such as
Poetry, Rattle, and the North American Review. His books are ‘The So-Called Sonnets
(Silenced Press); ‘An Unbecoming Fit Of Frenzy; (Cawing Crow Press), ‘Like As If”
(Pski’s Porch), and Hearsay (The Poet’s Haven).

Wapato Island

November 5th Tuesday 1805

a Cloudy morning Som rain the after part of last night & this morning. I could not Sleep for the noise kept by the Swans, Geese, white & black brant, Ducks &c. on a opposit base, & Sand hill Crane, they were emensely numerous and their noise horrid.
 —William Clark (Lewis and Clark Journals, edited by Gary E. Moulton)

We hide under the old oaks.
A glimmer of setting sun
reveals wings in flight.
They come in threes, fives, a dozen,
flying like arrows,
they bugle, chortle, and rattle,
their calls older than cave art.

The Sandhill Cranes cruise in
from corn fields,
shift course when they spot us,
parachute down into Sturgeon Lake
perform their primal dance,
choreographed over eons:
leaping, dipping, flapping, bowing.
They join the gathering hundreds,
a roost in the shallow marsh
where they are stained cinnamon red,
where Coyote does not venture.

Their song lifts and falls
answered by the calls of hundreds
of Canada Geese,
dozens of White-fronted,
but no Brants.

Ghosts of Multnomah Indians
gather here, chant with the cranes,
dig up roots of arrow-leaf wapato.
Today they are gone—
wiped out two centuries ago
by epidemic fever.

The red sun dips into the Coast Range.
We stay into the darkness,
the cranes sail in by the score,
their crescendo pulses.

It’s our last night
before the gate is locked
and hunting begins.
We walk out slowly in the dark
avoiding cow pies,
the grass nibbled to the ground.

We hear the deep hooting
of a Great-horned Owl,
its black shadow glides over us.
In a nearby field,
a coyote howls.

Among Lava Flows

Newberry Volcano, Oregon

Our paddles dip in the frigid water,
the blue canoe glides effortlessly
across the caldera pool
where the volcano collapsed,
we float among Western Grebes,
rafts of buffleheads and coots,
shoals of kokanee salmon.

We reach the shore—
pyroclastic flow, young lava,
young like raven fledglings,
discharged only 1300 years ago,
lava that surged over basalt
over alluvial deposits
over sediment from Missoula floods.

We met some years ago
on a nearby trail
among Ponderosa pines,
the play of Clark’s Nutcrackers.
A flock of Oregon Juncos followed us
until we wandered into the lava tube,
where in the faint glow
‌            we embraced.

Flows of rhyolite rock—
boulders of obsidian,
blacker than ebony,
edges of midnight silver
that cut through ice,
become arrowheads,
knives, scrapers of buckskin.

The earth shudders—
horizons quiver and spin
icy waves crash over the bow
the canoe rolls—
we brace on the gunnels
our boat rights itself,
we await shock waves,
eruption of fire and ash.

Seconds feel
‌              like hours. In slow motion
we paddle doggedly,
come ashore on the beach,
rolling white pumice stones.

Our feet slip-slide,
we hold each other close
‌              waiting—
the earth stops trembling,
sky reflects deep blue.

 

Francis Opila has lived in the Pacific Northwest most of his adult life; he currently resides in Portland, OR.  His work, recreation, and spirit have taken him out into the woods, wetlands, mountains, and rivers. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Parks and Points, Soul-Lit, Windfall, and Clackamas Literary Review. He enjoys performing poetry, combining recitation and playing Native American flute.

Born in a San Francisco Tributary

First night back in my childhood home after
the remodel, the AC kicks awake into a familiar
trip-note. A driftwood angel casts long wings
over a newly white wall, sepia exiled
to attic living. Only some shapes are the same,
the backsteps still a place to sit and scrape all sweetness
from early oranges.

Living North, I miss the coyote hills of California,
yellow with dead grass, mustard flower, and afternoon heat
only swimming cold water can wring out. Summers
and summers ago, before fire was just another seasonal thing,
the Blankenship boys dug all through these hills, building
better air for their bikes. Every year since
it’s all churned into firebreak. Earth upturned,
roots to the air, full of distance.

 

Emily L. Pate is a writer, creative writing mentor, and obscure fact collector originally from California and currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia. Her poetry and creative nonfiction have been published in Blending Magazine and The Northwest Passage.

Deschutes River Dream

The river is green opaque, swift.
Current runs steady, deep.

Reeds sway at river’s edge.
Hooded Mergansers rustle,

break free. Tree-swallows cut the sky
into blue scraps above yellow kayaks.

An osprey folds black wings,
plummets head down into glassy depths,

emerges, a line of silver between its talons.
We three bicyclists roll down the path

beside the river. Sunshine glints, blinds.
We turn to cross the wooden bridge.

Tires thud, bump across each joint between planks.
We stop, look back along the river.

A woman appears among the ponderosa pines.
Tendrils of grey hair escape her green straw hat,

a scarf threaded tightly through the brim,
knotted below her chin. I recognize her upright stance,

her direct glance. My mother stands poised at an easel,
slim black paintbrush between her fingers.

For a long minute she stares at us.
Then she is gone.

When I awake I search for the painting.
There’s the bridge arching over the green river.

There are the three cyclists.  There, the brown dog.
There, always, the blue sky.

Vivienne Popperl lives in Portland, Oregon.  Her poetry has appeared in several publications including VoiceCatcher, Persimmon Tree Journal, Oyster River Pages, and Willawaw Journal, and is forthcoming in Cirque and The Clackamas Literary Review.  She was honored to serve as a poetry co-editor for the Fall 2017 edition of VoiceCatcher, an online journal of women’s voices and vision.