COAST RANGE (Written at Yachats)

Conversation ripples
Down the hall,
rushing here, bubbling there
Like coastal mountain streams.
I chance to hear musical
Names like Alsea, Tillamook,Shasta, Rogue.
Somewhere in the misty hills
The firs brush the wind along
Singing a sighing song,
Yakona, Sixes.Twenty miles by ninety long.
This part's for you said Boston men.
(The first 100 years, Lincoln County.
Little log church by the sea.)
Like restive children
They were gathered in
And taught to farm,
To live in houses, and
Their children sent to school,
Were on the way to being "civilized".
But we're here now,
Walking down the hall
Saying where we're from
Or where we've been
And on Portland's crowded streets
Far from the sea and the forest
Walk strangers named only Indians.