On the shores of the Salish Sea
cold tides churn
exhaling long tendrils.
The ocean’s briny breath
Redolent with kelp
Snakes across pebbled shores
And slips into forests
Weaving between trunks
Caressing the rough bark of stately cedars.
Languorous mist drifts down
Meeting and mingling fog rising up,
Coalescing in tumescent drops that
Patter and splat on broad leafed maple
And grow to deluge dripping downpour
Swelling surging Skagit, Stillaguamish, Snake, Skykomish,
Sauk, Snohomish, Simikameen, Sumas, Snoqualmie
Rivers tumble roar
On their short sure runs from
Mountain to shore.
And on the rocky islands that dot the sea
The water sheets away
Pooling stalling swirling
In every nook and hollow,
Ponds and lakes
Shiver glimmer ripple as they welcome back
Little droplets of themselves
Then overflow and cascade
Winding through the loamy forest floor
Where funghi fatten
And fern fronds unfurl,
Finally falling into the embrace of the salty sea.
Evaporation, condensation, precipitation.
Saturation.
We are all vessels in this cycle of hydration:
Respiration, perspiration, lacrimation.
Water passes through us,
Back to the sea, up to the clouds,
Cleansed of impurities,
To fall again
And again.
And again.
How many thousands of years has the Salish Sea
Swallowed the blood of salmon
Gutted on the shoal?
How many gallons of tears has the Salish Sea
Embraced, the mournful words in Salishan
Cried over broken hearts and broken treaties?
We splash through puddles
Of millennia of memory.
Droplets clinging to our hair,
Our skin, our eyelashes and GoreTex jackets.
We are heavy with it.
Green with it.
Breathing in ocean
Breathing out clouds.