“All’s Well That Ends Well, Mostly”

This is the dreaded wooka hooka wae wombat track.  These guys crawl from brush to steal your steelhead.  I’m working on a wooka hooka wae repellent to go with my bigfoot repellent which is guaranteed for life or your money back.

My elaborate mathematical tackle organization will immediately remind students of my desk at the college.

Is a steelhead under the old oak tree?

Is a steelhead under the waterfall?

Some say fishing with a broken rod is more sportsmanlike.  I don’t.

“All’s Well That Ends Well, Mostly”

Old One

The Old Ones at Coastal Creek

are just stumps of their former selves.
Once, 200 feet tall,
now round red-fleshed nurseries 
for new green seedlings
which haven’t yet seen Columbus Day Storms
rolling in from the Pacific
and spawning giants that follow,
silver bright then copper
then black until ivory bones fill
deep shady pools to fertilize new roots.


Sometimes while fishing
you notice an Old One above your cast
or on the trail over your shoulder.
When you get anywhere near one
if there is any sin in your life
you know it.

(Thanks to The Oregonian and Sitka Center for Art and Ecology for publishing this poem, and to Write Around Portland for putting it on their office door when I taught there.)