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Paradise Lost
By Marian Chinn, of Astoria
You are entering unceded territory
So proclaims the sign
Just across the Megler bridge
In Washington State
As I head north
I think about the tribes
Living along these shores
Three hundred
Five hundred
One thousand years ago
Awaiting spring
With vegetation budding
Days become longer
Air becoming warmer
A seemingly ideal life
Altered forever
By those who came by sea and land
And never left
Spring
By Marian Chinn, of Astoria
I can see a path through the trees
Today and for awhile
But the willow and alder are
Returning to life
Soon to be an impenetrable thicket
Through which I can neither walk nor gaze
For it is newly spring
On the Long Beach Peninsula
Hailey Hoff man/The Astorian
Pea plants sprout and begin to wind their way up sticks.
In Pacifi c County
In the state of Washington
A GRACIOUS GIFT
By Randy Van Dyke, of Ocean Park,
Washington
Who is the mother of my children
What is she like
This is who I see
This is what I know
She gives love like no other in the world
She’s like the love only God has to give
She’s like that and comes from that
A Gracious Gift
She gives kindness of a caliber
Which eludes my understanding
Her kindness comes from far away
And resides in her heart as part of her
A Gracious Gift
Her self sacrifi ces cannot be counted
Blessed are my children whom
Often encounter them unknowingly
A Gracious Gift
I am confounded by her wonderful qualities
The consistency of her ways
Her patience, uncanny wisdom
And natural intuition
Caregiving beyond the call demanded
The depth of her eyes
Leading to the expanse of her heart
The depth of her love
This is who I know
This is what I see
A Gracious Gift
SPINNING WITH THE UNIVERSE
By Randy Van Dyke, of Ocean Park,
Washington
I guess I should have stopped in
When I was passing by at fi rst
Since you’re just around the corner
From the universe
But I was compelled by my star to keep
going
Because a moonlight night was glowing
And if I stopped a minute right then
I would have missed a lot by not going
Then I followed my star and went
When taken by complete surprise
I felt as if I’d been there once
Light years before I arrived
And now some colorful cosmic rays
Create rainbows to a new path my way
So I’ll be around the corner
From the universe today
This time I’ll make time
To stop in along the way
And say hello while on my search
Just around the corner
From the universe
Seven Months After the Echo
Mountain Complex Fire
columbiamemorial.org/behavioral-health
14 // COASTWEEKEND.COM
By Lauren Mallet, of Warrenton
The ridges and pits of the mushroom’s
brainy top,
the trees creaking open,
the tee ta da of the birds.
The brushing aside the twigs and leaves
where the hollow
stem meets the dirt.
The pinch rather than the pull,
the messy tear of morel from mycelium, the
treasure
set in the mesh bag
secured to my hip.
The faith that this transport liberates spores
and divines
mushrooms for years to come;
this trail I hear myself on—
then where are my lands and what is there
for me to eat?
Once Emerged
By Linda K. Hoard, of Lake Oswego
It starts with a groundhog lumbering out of
a cozy sleep
to search for his whiskered shadow, then
waddle back to his dank den.
Six weeks or sooner, Spring emerges. Even
if we get late frost
on the snowdrops, or the puff y-cheeked
North Wind blows
an arctic blast through the pear orchard, the
cold won’t last.
Once skunk cabbage seep up from the thaw-
ing mud, and purple crocus
poke through snow crust, there’s no pushing
them down.
When daff odil stems stretch up through soil
and dried leaf,
there’s no stuffi ng them underground. Tulips
and hyacinths won’t slide back
into their bulbs any more than paw-soft
pussy willows will hide again in buds.
Ever try to talk a skein of northbound geese
into circling aloft an extra week?
Convince the migrating redwings to stay in
Florida a little longer?
No use telling robins to cease their singing
come March.
They’re hell bent on slapping some sticks
and mud together
for a lovely arrangement of light blue eggs.
Tissue paper cherry blossoms, frill-edged
daff odils, yellow forsythia.
Once Spring makes up her mind, there’s no
turning
back to tight bud casings, brown-husked
buried bulbs.
Life, in all its persistence, is going to sweep
us through the seasons,
no matter how hard we hang onto the last
pile of melting snow,
the brittle edge of lake ice, the mittens in a
coat.
And yet, just as quickly, tulips wilt. Petals
curl and drop one by one,
exposing pollen-heavy stamens. Forsythia
litters the ground with gold.
Fledglings, plump with worms, fl y the nest.
Soft green leaves fully unfurl.
Spring, once so dang determined to be, dis-
appears quietly
under the maple’s shade one bright June day.