Divorce Rate in the Northwest
What these mountains had to give
we’ve turned into crates for overseas
No wonder we keep missing each other
cry words, words and choose dust
or nails for breakfast
What these mountains had to give
we’ve subdivided into wide closets
and no basements
The dog chained in back bites the hand
while we talk of children in Pakistan
What these mountains had to give
chokes up streams and clogs the sloughs
Where will our dreams now spawn?
No return on that stock, try as we might
Sea gulls always find the scent
What these mountains had to give
is lost somewhere under the dam
That beautiful girl I once knew
Celilo—angels leaping round her—
no money no silver or green like hers
What these mountains had to give
comes roaring back in a tsunami of splinters
We run to dissemble in sawmills
fight over blood incinerating
and wonder why the evening sky turns purple
For thousands of years Celilo Falls was a meeting ground on the Columbia River. People gathered every fall to fish for salmon leaping up those cascading waters. Now it is Lake Celilo, behind The Dalles Dam.