By David Stone
Dear Quartzville Creek,
From the time I first laid eyes on you, it was love at first sight.
Your cascading waters and quiet pools sing a siren song I can’t resist.
By Bob Bumstead
Moon over Black Canyon:
The moon rises
over Black Canyon
softening the contours
of Hoover Dam
knowing it will not last.
By Garrett Reagan
Tell me again of the season
When gallivants would whistle and walk, weary eyed and bushy browed
When blackberry brambles spoke in cursive, tracing hillsides in pillowy clouds
By Mary Sharon Moore
Sitting up high in the back of the McKenzie River-bound bus, I take in a picture-window view of morning sky to the east and north. A thin marine overcast evaporates as morning summer sun climbs in the sky.
By Lamar White
My parents and sister migrated from Arkansas to the McKenzie River in 1939. My father worked for Rosboro Lumber and they lived in a tent just a few yards upriver from the rock which is Finn Rock.
By Mary Sharon Moore
The wildfires that have ravaged my beloved McKenzie River Corridor sparked into being a month ago. The evening of Labor Day, to be exact.
By Ms. Joy Sisto
You are the dirt that nourishes the tree.
So, it’s grateful for all your life giving,
and your consciousness to nourish you,
united to love with the best you can be.
By Howard Horowitz
Three Sisters, Little Belknap, Broken Top,
Yapoah Crater, Ahalapam: volcanic names
are strewn across the map.
(The bilious earth
disgorged one hundred miles of aa,
inhospitable to all feet.)
By Billie Ruth Rose
My youth was spent
in the out-of-doors
climbing hills,
climbing trees,
leaving prints on sandy shores,
collecting rocks I thought I’d keep forever.
By Bob Bumstead
It happened on Kirk Road,
you know, the one between Fern Ridge and Territorial Road…
By Mary Sharon Moore
I’m a little over an hour into my seven-hour hike along the McKenzie River Trail. And it’s a stunningly beautiful summer morning in Oregon’s western Cascades. My aim today? To hike ten miles.