The Cascades are the upstarts
coming out of the East, sunlined with
Shasta and the one they now call Mc Laughlin
for an old Hudson Bay Company man’s
locks of white hair,
& to the north is old Theilsen growing wiser
on its way up toward Three Sisters & brother Hood

But all the Cascades are the upstarts
for everything else had been here before,
when the world began between the coital
fulcrum of  two Table Rocks,
left now as lava flow and the dust that washed away
from a volcano much more distant in time than
that giant fat Mazama newcomer
which got too big for its britches &
gave in & puked itself up
over three states and two provinces
before straight lines were drawn in nature
to denote such things,
There were Men here–even then,
hunting Wapiti, Big black tail deer,
and fishing for the Tyee…

The Siskiyou’s were the moving mountains
here long before their eastern newcoming brothers
joined the scene, and that old long gone
nameless mountain that filled up this Valley
even before Hesoid, for sweet rain
to wash away the beginning, which
was not even a vague memory
for the ghosts of pre-Mazama men
whose live forms made Quartz knives and spears
the likes of which were never duplicated
after that mountain blew away
What is left is two Table Rocks,
where before it washed away
the world began,
these flat mesa tops were once this valley’s floor,
& knowing this,
the first post-mazamaman,
called it sacred, as he continued,
hunting Wapiti, Big black tail deer,
and fishing for the Tyee…

The white man came not out of the east,
as he did in so many other places, but from
the North and then the South bringing
evil and innocence in the same wagon
not knowing, he too, was post-Mazama man,
not knowing what was sacred,
and after killing all the men before him,
like them all–he continued,
hunting Wapiti, big black tail deer,
and fishing for the Tyee…

They say now McLaughlin’s most like
its sister upstart Saint Helens,
way up Warshington way
& Mazama’s just a tourist trap called Crater Lake,
the Takilma wouldn’t go there, for they lost
the art of making crystal spears,
& knew the place contained more than fear,
but should old John McLaughlin’s name sake go, I’ll
wish everyone

fare thee well
when it starts to grumble,
for the lands been here before us all,
and my hope would only be, that we really
know what’s sacred, & that
might we could continue,
hunting Wapiti, big black tail deer,
and fishing for the Tyee…