More Poems from Catching the Limit
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Thalman writes about Oregon's Coast, the Willamette Valley, and the Cascades,
painting word pictures of the region's rugged beauty and the people who shape it
and are shaped by it.
Debby De Carlo - The Forest Grove News Times
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BORN IN OREGON
Some days I am a fir. Squirrels eat from my limbs.
Other days I am a rhododendron. My genes are coded
as cuneiform. Toadstools and moss grow in the caverns
of my lungs. I am accustomed to the sky,
gray as wax paper.
"Born in Oregon" was originally published in Poetry Now,
appeared in Starting with Little Things , Oregon Arts Foundation
and anthologized in Deer Drink the Moon: Poems of Oregon,
Ooligan Press, Portland State University. |
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NORTH UMPQUA, SUMMER RUN
Wading thigh-deep,
I cast a fly
which I tied last winter,
and let it drift
below the riffle.
There, a steelhead lies,
weighing the current,
balancing in one place,
the mouth slowly working
open and closed.
While eyes that have never known sleep
signal the body to rise,
slide steadily forward,
shadow flickering
over mossy stones.
In a smooth flash of motion,
deft as a blade, the fish strikes
and the surface explodes.
Trembling violently in air,
amid spray and foam,
the steelhead blazes like a mirror catching sun,
falls back, extinguishing the fire,
only to lift again,
a flame out of water.
In a long meteoric arc,
cutting a vee across the surface,
the fish unable to dislodge the hook,
dashes instinctively down stream.
Zigzagging back and forth,
fight the current and line,
it is only a matter of time,
until this miracle of energy
rests on its side,
gills flaring.
She's fat with roe,
so I work the barb out
and let her go
on her journey
from which
there is no escape.
"North Umpqua, Summer Run" was published by Gin Bender Poetry Review
and later appeared in Deer Drink the Moon: Poems of Oregon,
Ooligan Press, Portland State University
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MIDWINTER: SAUVIE ISLAND
In late afternoon, sunlight
slices between huge gray clouds
turning the valley and hills vibrant.
All colors grow equally intense
as if someone is adjusting a dial.
Each hue threatens to spill out
of the physical shape it possesses:
forest, fields, and houses
becoming a giant tide.
Across the uplands, vanes of geese
populate the air: so many
filling a piece of sky,
the eye can not count them.
Calling hungrily to each other,
they begin a large sweeping circle
for their gradual approach . . .
Flock after flock skim over tree tops,
then descend, glide in, and just before touching down
beat wings-- rowing the air-- finally to settle
into wheat stubble.
Clouds heal together. Light fades.
What seems so vivid drains away.
For the first time, the geese are silent.
Some feed. Others tuck their heads beneath bent wings--
the ancestral messages of distant landmarks
surfacing and sinking in their blood.
"Midwinter: Sauvie Island" was originally published in Pearl
and later appeared in Deer Drink the Moon: Poems of Oregon,
Ooligan Press, Portland State University.
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FREEZING MOON
Through a windswept field, champagne powder blows.
I walk on sculptured dunes toward the vacant road
and pause to pick up a maple seed
still attached to its wing.
There are no maples for miles.
Maybe it was dropped by a sparrow flying home.
Using the heel of my boot as a hoe,
I scrape away a crust of ice
and plant this seed under a thin layer of soil,
so that come spring
a tree might break from the ground . . .
rising into the air out of which it fell,
and on another night such as this
will hold the moonlight
in the snow on its branches.
"Freezine Moon" was published by Widner Review.
and later appeared in Deer Drink the Moon: Poems of Oregon,
Ooligan Press, Portland State University
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