Yo Ho Coho!

Friends who own and sustainably manage forest land in the coast range between Portland and the Pacific Ocean host an event to welcome spawning coho salmon to the creek that is a tributary to the Nehalem River. Participants are invited to bring something for an altar next to the stream that welcomes the fish home. Thank you, Peter and Pam! This year I wrote a prayer/poem, thus:

Yo Ho Coho
©2023 Duane H. Fickeisen

Yo ho, Coho 
Great salmon people,
Come on home!

Welcome! Welcome!
Welcome back again
To Lousignont Creek.

Image of carved salmon on a tree trunk, SE 58th Ave and Salmon St, ,Portland, OR

We celebrate your
Marvelous return
To mate and spawn.

Here is the stream
Gravel beds await
Build a redd and spawn.

Let milt and eggs merge=
Your body to feed eagles,
Forest, and creek.

May your embryos
Hatch into myriad fry
And find the water clean.

May root wads and logs
And calm pools shelter
Them from floods,

And protect them
From hungry predators
As they gain strength,

And commit to memory
The taste, the smell, the feel
Of Lousignont Creek.

When the time is right
(They’ll know!) may they
Find their way downstream.

Mapping every rapid
Tributary and fall
From here to the estuary.

From there to the sea,
Swimming far out
Feeding on abundant prey.

The survivors will begin
The long journey home.
(May they be enough!)

Always remembering
Lousignont Creek.
The map leading back.

To return, to spawn,
To become forest
To perpetuate salmon.

Yo ho, Coho!
Welcome, Welcome, 
Welcome home!

Spawning Coho in  Lousignont Creek