Adios

As Oregon crawled towards me
down a road three days long,
Texas grew small and faint and got lost
somewhere in my rear view mirror.

A new sweetness filled my mouth.

I savored it through the Blue Mountains

and again at Celilo.

It grew stronger among the evergreens
when Multnomah Fall's rumbling voice

woke my sleeping senses from the road.

The great mother-river flowed beside me

to this new land, my new land,
carrying the melting snow one way,
and salmon in another.

All my flat and distant past burned before me upon a pyre of fir,

unending fragrant Douglas fir,
its downy spent ashes left to wash me clean.

A Pacific Wonderful-land for me
to live and prosper in renewed.