ON THE MCKENZIE RIVER, THIRD RIVER IN THREE DAYS--WITH THE MCKENZIE RIVER RESTORATION PROJECT, AN ACCOMPANIMENT

 

IV. ON THE MCKENZIE RIVER, THIRD RIVER IN THREE DAYS,

WITH THE MCKENZIE RIVER RESTORATION PROJECT, AN ACCOMPANIMENT

          --for Sarah Wheeler & Sarah Hunter

         --When asked about his desire to contribute to the literature of hope

            on the River, Barry Lopez responds: I would like at the end of my life

            to say that I had lived up to the expectation of that River.

                    --B.L. interview PBS, KLCC, 2016

When he asks,

Where have you been?

Some told him

of their travels.

He wanted to know

what took you so long.

The mind drifts, and I catch

just enough to ask the question

about the beavers.

They love the willows we’re planting.

They’ll replant them near their lodge,

dome-shaped from wooden sticks.

Willows a food source.

Beavers like their food close.

Dams slow water, keeping

it on landscape. Wetland creation,

from streams to form streams.

From harvesting willows. Farming.

This is river talk river-walking.

Taking notes on the Forest Service map

left behind by the others.

Careful with steps.

Can’t rush to catch up.

Don’t fall while imagining,

What if, and what ifs piling up.

Don’t drop these notes in the water!

Last night in the room, preparing,

questions asked of Lopez,

And when you apprentice yourself to the river…

it just keeps going, it absorbs everything.

Startled from the dreaming,

re-locating the others half-circled

around our guide all eyes on the water, half-hearing,

...and if you find water with an oily sheen on it,

poke it with a stick, if it’s natural it will shatter.

It’s decaying plant matter. Yes.

It’s called biofilm. If it clings together, it’s oil--

take a picture, note location, and report it.

Graduate students from Corvalis

don’t know Lopez, don’t know Synder.

Come to these rivers from all over the nation

knowing their hydrology, emptying themselves

from a single van, carrying Dogwood, Nine Bark,

Honeysuckle Twin Berry—that’s the big one,

these are native, for planting. Don’t need to bring up

the heritage of their backpacks. Talking

to each other about artificial gravel ponds,

regrading. Not the logging company

mining gravel for roads and levees.

Disrupt the land in order to create it.

Bury logs, wedge them,

dangerous work to rebuild the flood plain,

for the science of meander. Spontaneous.

An old man taking notes on wonder,

reuniting Elk Creek with the McKenzie.

Me? My father is a fishery biologist.

Take out the bass and bull frogs.

Bring in lamprey. Salmon numbers fry up to 300.

Lopez would cry hearing these kids.

On land and out of waders.

Cut those blackberries short,

Dig roots where you can.

Neat piles. They’ll re-root themselves.

Let Portland have these blackberries,

help them to remember the land they came from.