Lost Salmon (Published), Hawk on Wire: Ecopoems (Fomite Will Publish in 2017), A Creek I Never Fished (Started)

My new book of fishing/eco-poems from MoonPath arrived.  Click here to order. I'm grateful to
Jennifer Williams for great cover art, and to Thomas Rain Crowe, Frank Amato, Jon Broderick,
Henry Hughes, David Joy, Marty Sherman, Jack Driscoll, and Larry Gavin for helpful blurbs.

Honey Goat With Baby Goat

Reaching for clouds or fly line?

Southern Oregon Traffic Jam

Wood Pile left by "Nom Rat"

At PLAYA in December I finished my 79-page Lost Salmon and had it published July 11 by MoonPath near Seattle.  Earlier this month, in my second PLAYA residency, I finished my 62-page Hawk on Wire: Ecopoems (previously titled Chewaucan Wars), and started A Creek I Never Fished. I met wonderful residents and locals, and caught some fish.  In nearby Paisley, I saw this cardboard sign:

"Lemon
ade

Name your price"

On a distant river, I had an interesting conversation with a local:

Wrong Turn

The local says nom rats cut and stacked wood piles.

"They must be big," I offer.

"They is," he says, "the size of John Deere tractors."
I laugh and ask for a fishing spot.

"Well, you'll need a detailed map," he smiles.

"How detailed?" I ask.

"God's."

Thanks to Northwest Fishing Reports for publishing my new article "Hook More Fish."

Thanks to The Columbian newspaper in Vancouver, WA, for publishing my letter to the editor in which I wrote "By now it’s obvious, saving climate from catastrophe means saving salmon from catastrophe."

Desert Time Machine

I found desert creeks with healthy redsides.  I had to drive forever but didn't see another angler. It is possible to go back hundreds or thousands of years to pristine waters if you're serious about it -- dirt roads, unmarked side roads, some wrong turns.  Regarding going back in time, the Ghost of Galileo visited me yesterday:

Ghost of Galileo Speaks of Climate Change

“I knew the truth
but had more faith
in the power of reason
than was warranted”

“so when Cesare Cremonini
looked through my scope
and pretended not to see
Jupiter’s moons

“I learned about the clash
between reality
and ideology, later
recanted, saved my life,

“before the Roman Inquisition.
The problem now is,
not counting animals and plants,
the lives of 7 billion.

(and a few days before, an unghosted owl):

Great Horned Owl

I tried to have a conversation
with her about climate change

and she listened politely
then flew away

making me think
I should have listened more,

and watched, spoke less.
All around us, salmon,

cedar, Douglas fir,
mountain glaciers are speaking.

PLAYA Climate Change Discussion July 7, 2016

Another Wild Rainbow

Paintbrush

Lupine

Wood Worm

Jason Box, Greenland ice climatologist and professor at The Geologic Survey of Denmark, said at PLAYA two nights ago out of the ten possible scenarios on climate change, nine result in loss of society as we know it.

Reflecting on this, I drove to a trout stream and had climate change conversations with ghosts of Socrates, Ed Abbey, Mother Teresa, and Charles Bukowski which I will put in my book-in-progress Hawk on Wire: Ecopoems. I recalled my Outward Bound rock climbing course in the Okanagan Mountains when I was 16, and my instructor Dick Stokes, who later fished with me, saying if the world falls apart he will get his "last sweet breath in wilderness."  In addition to my teaching, and activism, I spend as much time in wilderness as I can.

Of the above-mentioned ghosts, Bukowski was least willing.  "Remember, you asked me so I'll speak when I'm damn well ready and not before," he said.  I forgot about him while catching rainbow trout on a size 10 peacock / mallard nymph, then I rounded a canyon corner past a huge boulder and there he was:

Ghost of Bukowski Speaks on Climate Change

Yes, it's sad,
bleaker than sheep snot
on barbed wire

but, hope or no hope,
we must find
some way

to make joy
no matter what.

Climate Change Residency at PLAYA

My cabin for the month of July.

Here's a clue.

Wild Rainbow

I'm enjoying my July residency at PLAYA working on my third book of eco-poems Chewaucan Wars.  According to Flyfisher's Guide to Oregon, Chewaucan "is a Native American name meaning 'place of the potato.'"  My book is about Oregon and the coming resource wars due to habitat loss.  I'm grateful for the scenic beauty of the area, fine company, and exchange of ideas.   The drive here took me past the Deschutes River and many smaller rivers that were too tempting to pass up.