[notes – trying to convey the notion that salmon and steelhead in the Pacific have largely evolved alongside the earth’s most dynamic landscapes – the Pacific Rim – this country beaten, shaken and falling apart is home to these great fish – I just wanted to get some preliminary thoughts down and work through it for awhile – much better reading than a journal article!]

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All along the coast

Great mountains rise

Up from Oceans

Falling from volcanoes

Rainier, Hood, Shasta

Just a few

And all those little creeks

Collecting water from the ocean

Pushing mountains back to the sea

Returned to their birthplace

Atop mountains carved by glaciers

Covered in lava

Shaken by earthquakes

Landslides, floods and droughts

Such a brittle country

Who would ever find a home

Here?

That little creek,

Here today

Going away with the mountain

Some great geologic clock

Returning all to the sea

Then upheaved, scraped and shaken again

And again from before our time

To well past our place

Who would ever be here?