Twelve ravens squawk, squork, crork,
over the dark tall spruce
   and down to the beach.
Two eagles squabbling, twitter, meeting,
bumping flying overhead

amber river waters
dark from muskeg acids, irons,
murk the stream of tide-wall eagre coming up
over the sandspit, through the drumming surf,
eagles, ravens, seagulls,   over surf,
Salal and cedar at the swelling river,

   wheeling birds make comment:

on gray skies, big swells, storms,
the end of summer, the fall run—
humpy salmon waiting off the bar
   and when they start upstream

comment
on the flot and jet of sea crud
and the downriver wash of inland
hard-won forest natural trash
from an older wildness, from a climax lowland,
  virgin   system,


Mother,
                     Earth
loves to love.