Güd wrtr

We fear what we can’t see,
but none of us can see
what’s on the other side.

We’re not even convinced
that there is another side,
which frightens us all the more.

This can’t be it, can it?
We want so much more—
more time, more space,

more freedom, more money,
more love—always more love.
Even though we’ve had lots,

more than our fair share,
some might say. Doesn’t matter.
Everything we want is right here,

and that other side… if it exists…
well, that’s where faith come in.
But I don’t believe, you say.

And we say,
You don’t have to.
All you have to do is love

the best you can.
The best kind of faith,
the truest prayer.

Hold tight to love in your
sweaty little hand, in your
trusting, steady heart.

And, we promise,
all will be well.

Though these fish have never traveled
this far up their home waters,

they are making their way upriver
now after their long journey from

the sea where they will deposit
their precious cargo of the next

generation in a place their ancestors
swam more than a century ago.

The salmon remember.

Chinook again migrate up the mighty
Klamath River where four dams

once blocked their return,
manmade concrete barriers taken

down bit by bit after decades of urging
by the peoples of the land who knew

them best. The fish, guided by instinct,
cannot know the names of

the Yurok, the Karuk, the Shasta,
the Klamath and the Hoopa Valley,

their land-based human champions,
their sisters and brothers.

But the salmon remember the way
embedded deep in their DNA,

and, as if receiving a coded message,
they have arrived; they have

come home to complete the cycle
of spawning and dying, of birthing

so much more than offspring—
a legacy of hope fulfilled,

of future generations that they,
like us, will never see.

•••

On Oct. 16, 2024, biologists with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW)
spotted Chinook salmon above the former site of the J.C. Boyle Dam in the Upper Klamath River. They’re the first salmon in the region since 1912.

The dam was one of four that had blocked the salmon’s migration between the Klamath Basin and the Pacific Ocean. Each of those dams was recently deconstructed in the largest dam removal project in U.S. history, which has restored the river to its natural, free-flowing state.

(With appreciation to, among many others, the late Steve Thompson for his work on this salmon restoration project.)

•••

(Top) Woman with salmon / Artist: Tamara Adams

“Poem”: meaning “a made thing”
—poet Pádraig Ó Tuama

From poesis in Greek—making—
the oldest term for a poet

was maker. So we make things,
though not things that can be

held—as painters or sculptors do—
or put on walls or shelves for

admiring eyes. But we shape
the clay of words to prepare them

for firing. Or we spin wool into
thread that can be knitted

or crocheted into something
soft and warm. Let me wrap

you in cozy words then.
Let me make you a poem, that

may, with care and attention,
become something you carry

with you, this made thing I
spun from the strings of my heart,

reaching out to yours
like this.

As I drive across the causeway
I think of the bats underneath
who surely must be sleeping
at high noon, given that they
emerge at dusk on their
appointed rounds as
insect catchers and
good stewards of
these rice fields.

I wonder if all the traffic noise
bothers them as thousands
of vehicles rumble over
their snug space, as
the jolt and bam of
construction on
this great span
continues
ad nauseum.

Or, like some of us who live
near freeways, perhaps
the noise morphs into
the sounds of waves,
a rolling and receding
lullaby, alive with
the everyday
thrum of
home,

soothing the wee
beasties as they drift
into their daytime slumber.

You do not remember that self,
that more-than-half-century-ago self,

that skinny girl with braces and so much
life ahead of her, though she sports the crinkly

left eye that still looks smaller when you
smile, as if you are winking, just like

your 93-year-old mother, you who have
inherited her eye color and now

the glaucoma that darkens her days. And,
of course, you got older, grayer, heftier,

wrinklier. If you are lucky, you get to do that,
as your mother shows you every day, unlike

some of your beloveds who celebrated far
fewer birthdays on the planet. You smile

at your former self on the wall in your
mother’s house every time you look

at her, even if you don’t remember that
girl very well. Somewhere deep inside—

she nudges you with a wink—
she remembers you.

It’s been a long day, and you’re losing light
faster now, the days shortening long
before you’re ready,

and at the busy intersection where it always
takes longer than you like for the light
to go green, you look beyond

what’s in front of you—that piercing red
taillight—and note the curving arrow
pointing the way, as it always does,

and above it—can it be?—the day’s
last light through a heart framed by
trees, and you think,

No way. But there it is, and as you
drive slowly through the intersection,
your eyes affixed on that heart,

it does not move until you have to
turn the wheel slightly to the left,
and then it disappears

into curving branches and darkening
leaves, many of which will fall any day
now. There is more

to lose than light—
you feel it coming—but you
decide to accept the gift,

to take the love shining at you,
and thank those in the illumination
department for their excellent work,

as you keep driving west
toward home,
always into the light.

I don’t math for spit,
as you, little sister,
well know, and

though neither of us
is losing her hair (thank
the goddesses of tresses),

you can’t be that old
because you still look
45ish, while I’m rocking

my old white-haired
self at 66. And besides,
I have photos showing

your cute little girl
blondness that I swear
feels like yesterday.

And sure, you retired
from your three-plus-
decade day job into

full grandmahood,
but you are way more
youthful than either of

our grandmas. So phooey
on the numbers. No
matter what the song

says, we certainly still
need you. We thank
you for so kindly,

so often, feeding us.
Let us shower you with
all kinds of adoration

because you are the
bestest, and, oh, yes,
we still need you,

please let us feed you
(everybody sing!)
now you’re 64.

There she is,
lying on the sidewalk
as if the artist has left her

there for passers-by
like me, her cherry cheeks
beaming, her purple hair

streaming into—is that
aqua?—so colorful,
so fashionable down

to her fuchsia shoes.
What I like best are her
extended arms—her

here I am, world
stance, right there on
the boulevard.

And while tempted
to pick up this masterpiece
and take it with me,

I leave it where it lies,
anchored by a couple
of oak-flung acorns,

imagining who might
find it next,
a what’s this? smile

creeping across their face,
as the budding artist peeks
from behind the old oak

and giggles.

(for Kay Duren)

Taking a bag to the can on the street
in deep night, having forgotten earlier,

I step into shine so radiant that
I could be working on a tan out here.

And, marveling at the density of my
shadow on the driveway, I stop,

look up—straight up—to inhale
the year’s brightest full moon,

near perigee, close as it gets to
its planet, a mere 221,938 miles

away as the rocket flies. Though
the past two fulls have also been

super, this is the big whopper,
fitting on your momentous day,

as if Luna herself decided to mark
your 80 turns around the sun,

showing off her brightest
celestial self to this world

she oversees. This one that,
like so many of us,

celebrates your brilliance,
your lasting presence, too.

The gaping mouths
of emptied bins
tossed on their sides

by the big beasts
that have consumed
what lay inside

always look forlorn
a little lost
as those tossed aside

always do.