1 December 2024

By Philip Kuepper

It is not known precisely
the origin of the name Oregon.
It may have come from misspelling
“ouaricon-sint”, Ouisiconsink
(i.e., Wisconsin) River, on an early French
map of what was yet
to become the United States.
Bodies of water are like that.
They give liquid interpretation
to geography. The Pacific
knows what I mean. It has been
reinterpreting America’s west coast
since both first took on form.
Note the spectacular
stacked rocks,
at Bandon, south of Coos,
and the Capes,
Meares, Lookout, Kiwanda,
where fishermen dory their ways
through the cutting surf,
as though in a knife fight,
to get to the Pacific;
and Perpetua, a fine name, that,
where hang rainforests,
and spruce blue the fog-
enshrouded skyline.
And there lie blue supple,
when not gun-metal edgy,
bays the Pacific allows be
benign, from time to time.
Yet the profound
weight of that often
far from pacific body
will churn a bay into a squalling
baby ocean rowers stay wide of.
A rower and their oars
possess only so much power.
The bow to the ocean.
They raise their oars in salute,
as they row through wish
to reality. Bodies of water,
liquid as they are,
nonetheless, rule.

(30 November 2024)