Land of Broken Eggs (Hometown Abecedarian)
by Catalina Monteiro
As Lewis and Clark arrived the Wapato valley, Portland
Basin was 25 villages strong with
Chinook speaking people, who traded firs and beads until
Decimated by smallpox and measles brought by missionaries and settlers.
Each soul killed was born by South Wind’s salmon knife slipping to create Thunderbird, whose eggs
Fathered the first Indians, when the old
Giantess broke them down Saddleback mountain and was
Hunted north in revenge each year for her
Injustice. Thus the city’s Columbia and Willamette rivers were the birth of creation, history
Justified by thunderegg geodes and petrified wood and timber resources
Karma for clear-cutting in the yearly fires and ten-month rain but
Labors of love in acres of parks and conservation zones.
Most neighborhoods are blackberry and Douglass fir, but the canopy
Never turns brown and the huckleberry are always fresh and the leaves of the
Oregon grape are soft when they’re young. The water holds
Painted turtles and orange bellied newts who sun when the rain takes a breath, whose
Qualms about grabby human hands last only a moment until
Rapturous at a sacrificial fly. South wind birthing Thunderbird from
Salmon must have felt the same way about nature as I do, awe at creation and
Terror at the ease at which it rewrites itself. I am
Unstable in the food web and uncertain in my place in the Portland Basin.
Verily the slap of a beaver tail or hoot of a spotted owl is worth it. But
When I am old I want to be returned to the newts and the huckleberry, until then I shall
Exalt the stone and the river and find my place in the fields of
Yarrow and field mustard and knapweed, my
Zenith when the city is miles away and an orange newt glares from my palm. But — I am the
Youngest in my family, if you don’t count the cats, and also a
Xenolith rock transplanted into Portland but still born here, like the
Worn cobblestones in Oldtown and the invasive
Virginia possum. If I am South Wind’s awe at nature I am also a Giantess, an
Unwelcome trespasser into native land, like the whole city
Transplanting dense fir, cedar, hemlock, and maple —
Stumptown built on unwilling graves of bark. The Portland Basin cuts
Right through an active volcanic arc, and the “Big One” is coming, but we don’t know when; a
Quake that could reach 9.2, 13,000 deaths projected, Portland wiped out by the Cascadia subduction zone. Still,
People still move in, housing prices rise and the number of trees falls, even though the Big
One has a 33% chance within 50 years. If we are the old Giantess smashing Thunderbird’s eggs, then the Big One is our punishment.
No tests have been done on how the orange-bellied newts will be affected, there are no statistics on where the coyotes will hide, if the beavers will
Move their homes or if they will need to. Our greed and presumption in creating a City of Roses, a city of microbreweries and weed and bridges, will flood and
Leave us at the base of the mountain, the animal’s safe in Noah’s arks of their own making. They will be
Kindred to the Willamette and Columbia rivers, and when the forests flood I hope that the animals will be saved, and live without the
Jarring people-nature divide so common in our cities. But that is in the future and we are in the now, and to speak so callously of the foreboding end to the pacific northwest seems
Indelicate. Listen instead: Portland is beautiful, lovely parks and fountains and roses in every yard, graffiti
Heaped on each wall, traffic from dawn to dusk. If adventuring a bit further down
Gravel lined coastal roads there are giant redwoods and sequoias, and the largest known living organism (a honey mushroom!) dwells in one of our forests. Know that Oregon is beautiful for its nature and its unnatural
Foes called humans. Multnomah falls grows stronger every year, Mount Hood still stands tall if a little less white, and the hills are still covered in
Evergreens despite the crack of yearly clear-cutting. It feels all too big and all too small when you think of how easily it could be gone, dust and dirt and
Decay. I would like to keep it all in a glass prison over my heart,
Crack open the earth’s crust and stop an earthquake (or speed it up)
But instead I will rescue the garden spiders and catch the 5-footed-newts
And accept that Thunderbird’s eggs have already been cracked.