Scott Starbuck
Lost in the Woods
I pause in the creek bottom
of an alder thicket
to drink in cool water
and reflect on the classic way
I got into this mess
merely by following deer
as dark approached.
Last night it was 28 degrees
and I am wet,
soaked clear through.
Glasses lost to a branch
and down to one boot,
I laugh and think
that I, the outdoorsman,
may die tonight
and how, whether I do or not,
the blurred stars
look like Christmas lights
in the giant Sitkas.
18 in Depoe Bay
My tired arms crusted with salmon blood,
I walked home from the docks
hoping to still see a "For Sale" sign
on a rusted out '65 metallic green Mustang
so I could gawk religiously
like it was just off the lot
at a time when I had enough hope
to believe I could save something
from the relentless teaching
of the saltwater wind.
Rowing Pamela Up the Siletz River
"I don't love you," she reports
in the same tone
as pointing out a heron or river otter.
"I'm in love with a dentist in Montana."
Her teeth are perfect.
I keep rowing and imagining
I have an answer to this problem,
having spent all week fiberglassing
this old wooden rowboat
for my attractive pen pal
from Australia,
the one my deckhand Tattoo has called
a rare and beautiful bird
I should keep.
Suddenly the river speaks
so I don't have to.
"Did you notice we've sprung a leak
and water is filling the boat?"
"Yes," I answer. "And?" she questions.
"And I think it is good
we both know how to swim."
Smoked Whale, Circa 1987
Sickly sweet wood smoke wafts
over the central Oregon coast
as three gray whales breathe it in
and dive deep.
I call the Oregon Dept. of Environmental Quality
on the whales’ behalf.
“Is this a crank call?” someone asks.
“Are you a crank?” I ask.
“Well, what do you want
me to do about it?”
I tell her to prohibit slash burning
on days with east wind,
to fill her lungs with wood smoke
and retrieve a quarter
from the bottom of the river.
Coyote’s Prediction
There is a Spirit
like water healing
the river's paddle wounds,
old logging mill
lanced by seeds
of forgotten giants,
salmon cannery
weathered like ribs
of a fish skeleton.
Only things
that belong here
will last.
River Lesson #47, Don’t Set the Hook Too Hard
When the spring salmon hit
I set the hook
and missed,
arcing backward
like a curved stone
into a howling splash –
another dream-fish lost
like a career
or a woman,
leaving me humbled
again in the thick current.
Scott T. Starbuck lives near the Clackamas River outside Portland, Oregon and teaches in the Creative Writing Program at San Diego Mesa College. Recently, he has been pressing elk antlers, fishing lures, computer motherboards, fern leaves, river teeth, beads, and other items into clay. He said, “Eventually some honest feelings showed up.”
Earlier publications: “Lost in the Woods,” Riven Poetry Journal; “18 in Depoe Bay,” The Bathyspheric Review and the anthology Salt, a Collection of Poetry on the Oregon Coast, published by Nestucca Spit Press; “Rowing Pamela Up the Siletz River,” The Oregonian; “Smoked Whale,” The Bathyspheric Review; “Coyote’s Dream,” Mr. Cogito.
Links: Some of his creations are at the Spirit of the Salmon Fund for the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission and Columbia River Gallery.