Friday, December 31, 2010

Poor Memory Afternoon (Wallowa River, Minam Canyon)

Poor Memory Afternoon
(Wallowa River, Minam Canyon)

I can never remember what they call you -
But you look like a loon, and you float on the river like you own it.

Begins with a … begins with a … Where’s the darn book?
I know it’s with the ducks. I know it is.

Page, page, page… how could I forget? Male merganser;
poor memory afternoon.

Lights and Shadows



Wallowa Mountains photo by Kathy Bowman, Joseph, Oregon


To submit a poem or photo for the William Stafford Birthday
celebration, sent a note to staffordpoems at fishtrap.org

For Tuekakas and Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekht, Wet Solstice, 2010


Living on the dry side, yet
wet on wet on wet
thunder over the mountains


Kathy Bowman, Joseph, Oregon

To submit a poem or photo for the William Stafford Birthday
celebration, sent a note to staffordpoems at fishtrap.org




Beaver Gulch

Beaver Gulch . . .

After the Nez Perce war
.. when the survivers of the Joseph band
…. were dying in "the hot country..."
Yellow Wolf got homesick,
.. returned from "the Queen's country"
….. and visited an old friend, A.C. Smith.

A.C., having sold his tollbridge at Minam,
.. and finding lawyering slow in the county
took a contract to deliver rural mail.
Riding together, from Arkansas Hollow
.. to Winslow they had to sidehill a mile
…. and a half above solid beaver swamps.

As I travel that route, today, I note,
.. a beaver will have to pack tennis shoes
to cover that same dry stream reach.
Trapped out for cash money, this stream
.. down-cut twenty feet of accumulated silts
….. and livestock have completed the job.

Inside historic stories, lie many
.. smaller tales of humanity and change,
of ecological disasters and greed.
And I wonder how my days and toils,
.. might be chronicled by more than
….. the hawks and squirrels I have served.


--R.Anderson

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Camp Creek

Camp Creek

In the old days
.. when horses were still just food
... there were people here
….. learning... how to live on this land.

Perhaps, life was harder then
.. certainly it was a bit simpler
food, shelter, water, amusement
…. were abundant... so were big bears.

Travel was different, too.
.. The dogs and women
... carried everything important.
…. Men... were guarding and hunting

Villages moved in good weather
.. for a few hours each day
over open ground . . .
…. There were old people and young.

The land revealed secrets then,
.. in the first and last red light of day,
mid-summer's spires of fire,
…. green gentian blazed on the hillsides.

The people remarked then
.. on the spirits of medicine women
…. watching the land they loved
.. and the people's observances of it.

-- R.Anderson, Wallowa

Writing on Thin Ice



To submit a poem or photo for the William Stafford Birthday
celebration, sent a note to staffordpoems at fishtrap.org

Lostine River, Just Out of Town







We Deliver

We deliver


Winter on the Wallowa waterway, sunny and cold and

All those rednecks and long waders in the river, silent for once.

Winter steelhead are coming. You can track migration by

the herds of dirty pickups and stockdogs parked and panting anywhichway.

It’s nearly noon. In a cloud of gravel and dust,

The faithful FedEx driver pulls his shiny white truck to a sudden stop ‐‐

Leaps out! Fishing rod in hand, he takes an uncharted break.

You could get lucky too: Lunchtime, winter, Minam canyon.


Kathy Bowman, Joseph, OR


Share your poem with the community
by sending a note to staffordpoems at fishtrap.org

The Poem That Leaves No Tracks in Hells Canyon



Thanks to Winding Waters Rafting for the photo.

On the Way Home (Road Hazard)

on the way home (road hazard)

four Charolais have crossed the bridge
no crossing guard to keep them
from the windy blind corners at Minam

across the Wallowa River, half a dozen
more trudge down the empty rail tracks

there is no cell service in this steep
deep gouge, so pull off at Water Canyon

inquire, set cowboys in motion again:
and that’s today’s deed, for good or ill -
for four Charolais have crossed the bridge

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

At No-Name Creek


squish. squish, plop. squish, stop.
yank on laces - one shoe off -
hightop-mud-bare-foot.


Share your poem with the community
by sending a note to staffordpoems at fishtrap.org

# 864 508 at Rest By the Pond

Last Chance Creek, Swamp Creek

Last Chance Creek

Deep in the Wallowas, in the good old days,
.. the last Audubon's bighorns held out a long time
Competitive grazing with domestic sheep
.. guaranteed the loss of the old natives . . .
….. poaching, disease and low thrift from lack of food
We thought grizzlies, indians and wolves were problems


Swamp Creek

Cowboys named this place, frustrated with driving cows.
Beavers used to reign here with marsh and pond,
.. sedges and willow carrs, teaching steelhead to jump,
and otters and mink amused crawdads and mussels.
Nee-me-poo left huge shell middens, cached couse
.. and flaked keen basalt tools while waiting for game.

Trading beaver for guns and pots guaranteed their demise.
.. marshes and ponds disappeared, stream down-cut,
steelhead grew rare, everything that survived was grazed
….. by multiple classes of livestock for fire control.

It takes a long time and a glacial shift of attitude to repair
.. what was wrought with inattention, greed and short sight.

Where else on this landscape have we applied as much,
.. and forgotten . . . the grass belly deep to a tall horse,
open pine woodlands sprinkled with dryland willow,
….. filled with walking grouse, game and abundant roots?
An ecological eye seems to see in depth of time
even as i can hear... keening in the wind through the trees.

--R.Anderson Wallowa

Intermittencies


intermittencies

the first ice has long come and gone.
still the river ruffles its way down-valley
and not all plants have put up the dormancy sign.

in-between times stretch on, and we pretend
everything is just as we wish it, not just as it is.
the second ice has come and gone; perhaps... snow tomorrow.

Kathy Bowman, Joseph, Oregon

To submit a poem or photo for the William Stafford Birthday
celebration, sent a note to staffordpoems at fishtrap.org

Winterworks at the Creek




winterworks at the creek

at some point your hand just goes numb
as the winter water filters through your gloves
and your fingers dive for your armholes.

still there is work to do if you expect
to keep that fence, your yard, your house
so you swap out the rake for a shovel

and we dig a sloppy, nasty, narrow ditch
to divert ice melt from the foundation -
yet again. of course we could hire it done

but I hate to break it to you (knock
that ice aside, won't you?) we are the people
the yellow pages warned us about


Kathy Bowman, Joseph, Oregon

Wallowa Canyons - A Response Poem to Stafford's Climbing Along the River

Wallowa canyons

Rims and talus don't worry
about gravity.


Paleo-nomads once sheltered here
Trusting in genetic heritage.

These plateaus and mountains
Remember prairies.

Canyons are born and mature
With water and centuries.

My faith allows,
Mythos and ethos will merge.

And geo-topography
Creates the life it shelters.


. --R.Anderson. Wallowa, Oregon

In response to Stafford's Climbing Along the River
(See www.williamstafford.org/spoems/pages/alongtheriver.html)

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Invitation to Reflect



By now you know this blog is a "community write"
memorializing Wallowa County rivers and streams
in the style of William Stafford - or in your own style.
E-mail them (or pictures) to staffordpoems at fishtrap.org!

If you aren't brave enough to write, that's okay. You can
get help and encouragement by sending a note to the
address above - or you can simply come to the party.
See
http://fishtrap.org/staffordpoems.shtml for details.

Thinking About Stafford's Spirit of Place: Great Blue Heron


spirit of your place: wet rocks

in an act of faith, someone is walking over the river rock
where your shadow has passed -- where a thousand geese
have blessed the place with chants in your honor.

many travelers have stopped, puzzled by what might yet be,
and many still will. it is a test of promises. who passes?
the next traveler kneels to bait the line, hoping to hook Fate.

Kathy Bowman, Joseph, Oregon


Spirit of Place is one of a number of poems readily available at the Friends of William Stafford website. To explore more, see www.williamstafford.org/spoems/index.html


Hurricane Creek

Hurricane Creek

There is a reason it's not called "Hiss-icane Creek..."
.. and it's not because "She" comes doddering with a stick
or brings candy-canes to the little children . . .

Once, on a long, hot fourth of July
.. many of us were trapped high in the alpine cirques
. when Mother Nature boiled fiercely across Hurwal Divide.

Rare things live, way up there...
.. mountain goats high on the peaks, black swifts behind water falls,
…. limber pines, carcajou... sometimes even stranger scents in the breeze.

Deep in long cold winters
.. a wind boils from the mouth of that canyon
enough to raise the hairs on the back of my neck... or blow them away.

R.Anderson, Wallowa