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On Earth with Big Oil

is like being in a car

with crazy uncle Ned,

running red lights,

ignoring stop signs,

singing church hymns

while splattering raccoons,

ducklings, dogs, deer,

cats, possums,

plowing through old ladies,

folks in wheelchairs

and on scooters,

crowds of schoolchildren,

then whistling like they

never existed.

Your parent (government)

warns, “Don’t say anything

“about your mad uncle’s

driving habits

“as we need him

to butcher our cows.” 

Coyote’s Prediction 

There is a ghost

like water healing

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.

Ancient Forest 

People stare at iPhones

but what about listening

to voice of sea,

geese migrations,

salmon splashes,

cedar arms in wind,

like ages before

when men and women knew

quench soul hunger

first thing in morning

before saying anything

to anyone.

Laugh Out Loud Café 

is so quiet it makes history museum 

seem like a carnival ride.

“What’s up with the name?” I ask.

“Previous owner,” I’m told,

and think of bad storms

that change coastlines,

Titanic lifeboats

leaving half full.

When I Lived Upriver

I had a neighbor who spoke only in haiku,

and another of only Vietnam War.

Community dinners were mostly silent

except for songbirds, geese,

unheard pawprints of salamanders,

fins and tails of spawning salmon,

wary eyes of deer or elk,

or expanding roots of ferns,

wildflowers, mushroom mycelium,

bigleaf maple, and giant

Western redcedar, Doug-fir. 

River people, like trees, preferred

specific habitats, elevations,

right amounts of sun and rain.

When they shared, it was lived experience,

vivid dreams, hopes and fears

– such a break from network TV

like surfacing from a small pond

Scott Starbuck

Scott T. Starbuck is an American poet and artist. He writes a blog, Trees, Fish, and Dreams Climateblog, at  riverseek.blogspot.com, which has readers in 110 countries. He recently donated his Clay Salmon Poem artwork to the art collection at Lower Columbia College, and his other clay pieces to Battle Ground Public Library, Washington State University Vancouver Library, and Columbia Basin Fish & Wildlife Library, a program of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission. The rest of it he buried in the Cascade Mountains. Starbuck retired in June 2022 as co-coordinator of the creative writing program at Mesa College in San Diego and is currently traveling with his wife.