INTHETOTE
... an online archive of fisherpoetry, story and song.
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  • Performers
    • Tele Aadsen
    • Fred Bailey
    • Duncan Berry
    • Moe Bowstern
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    • Abigail Calkin
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    • Wayne Chimenti
    • Nancy Cook
    • Dave Densmore
    • Jason Doan
    • Pat Dixon
    • Sophie Elan
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    • Sierra Golden
    • Anjuli Grantham
    • John Hagerty
    • Lorrie Haight
    • Patty Hardin
    • Meezie Hermansen
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    • Alana Kansaku-Sarmiento
    • Larry Kaplan
    • Rich King
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    • Ron McDaniel
    • Dennis McGuire
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    • Joanna Reichhold
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    • Steve Schoonmaker
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    • Shanghaied on the Willamette
    • Smitty Smith
    • Jay Speakman
    • Clem Starck
    • Jeff Stonehill
    • Toby Sullivan
    • Jim Toteff
    • Hillel Wright
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  • Anchored in Deep Water: The FisherPoets Anthology
DUNCAN BERRY grew up on the Clatsop Plains on the Northern Oregon Coast son of author-father Don Berry and photo journalist mother Wyn Berry. He began his fishing career at the innocent age of 13 as a puller on his brothers Salmon-troller out of the Columbia River. He went on to captain the boat when he was 16 and then pursued other careers for the next 40 some odd years. These included making a living as a gold smith and enamelist, starting and running a design and exhibits firm, entering the fashion business and creating international brands in conventional and organic cotton.
 
During this same span of time Duncan spent 30 years on Vashon Island off of Seattle, raising two rambunctious and beautiful children with his beloved wife of 44 years, Melany… In 2006 the Oregon Coast beckoned them home to form a non-profit to preserve a large property at Cascade Head named Westwind.
 
In 2012 Duncan re-entered the fisheries business as co-founder of Fishpeople which is now a national brand distributing value added seafood products in 10,000 stores in all 50 states and landings in Ilwaco, Garibaldi and the Yukon. As a creative release he currently writes poems and shanties about his life with fish, and time spent on or under the water, as well as being crazy about the Japanese technique of Gyotaku or fish printing. He loves to swim with Salmon in the upper reaches of the coastal rivers and is a dedicated conservationist believing that native species are the key to our iconic Salmon’s future here in the great NW….
 
“I admire fish more than most of the human beings I meet”!


WRITINGS

​

homewaters
 
the turbulence 
of two creeks 
converging
has carved this depression in rock 
as deep as a man stands
filled with water
stripped from clouds
pushed hard against
the sides of coastal mountains
 
homewaters
 
on the far bank
a Big Leaf Maple has fallen 
arcing into this pool
its roots popping and snapping 
out of the earth 
as it descended
leaves parting from branches 
like feathers 
in the light air
 
I stand thigh deep in
38 degree water
the weak sunlight of October
reflecting silver 
on the surface of the water 
hiding what lies below
a stab of cold
pierces my wet suit
as I wade deeper
take a sharp 
breath 
and go under
 
gravity suspended 
heart beating loudly
face pained by cold
muted sound of rapids 
clicks of rocks shifting in their beds
light streaming to the bottom
 
homewaters
 
Muscles work against the current
I enter the rib cage
of fallen branches
stripped of their bark
hanging by one hand 
at the deepest point
like a kite stretched out sideways 
in the upper reaches of the tree
 
Then suddenly
they are everywhere
heavy black forms
darting in and out of the shadows
light rippling across their backs
they have come
40 miles from the sea
to this pool
past
fishermen, 
tangled log jams
and the ever present surge of current
these are nomad kings and queens
of the Pacific
the salmon people
 
she has come back 
come full circle
giving up her salty runs 
to return
return to the gravel-lined shallows
where her mother and father
lay with their bellies
against these same stones
full of the seed 
that would give her life
as they died
 
homewaters
 
here 
swimming underneath me
sharing this communion of water
she in their majority 
me in my minority
the clarity 
of her determination 
and beauty
resonating deep inside me
bringing words silently
 to my tongue
….sacred
….humbling
 
these are the gift bearers
giving completely
of their flesh
and eggs
and sperm
reminding us of
long buried memories
of belonging 
of returning
of something greater 
and older 
and deeper
in its rhythm 
 
homewaters

 
Dedicated to my friend Conrad Gowell….March 2015
 
 

________________________


 
i am salmon
 
i am salmon 
my body the
the elegant result
of millions of years of trial and error 
adapting to mountain ranges 
that have come and gone 
rivers once flowing 
now dry 
rocks made and unmade 
and me
still here
 
i am salmon
and my body is a simple miracle
red of gill
iridescent of scale
muscled for bursts and glides 
small white ear bone in my head bearing witness to it all
annular rings written in calcium and mineral molecules 
 the origins of my mother and father 
what river birthed me 
what i ate 
and when
and where
and this  
only one page in the book that 
i am
 
and you two legged ones
you of chain saws and damns
and sharpened hooks and strong nets
you who we call 
the salmon eaters
 
 
who amongst you could survive 
being dropped from your mother’s belly 
onto clean black rock  
into cold rush of oxygen rich waters 
emerging 
with only an egg sack at your belly 
for a jumpstart 
and nothing more
 
tumbling down tributaries 
into estuaries 
where the tang of salt burns your gills 
spit out the mouth of the river
into the great liquid canyons of the continental shelf 
with its legions of oil rich eulachon sand lance anchovy and herring 
 
who amongst you 
could return from a great arc to the north
looping back 
four years later
in a navigational miracle
 to the very river 
of your birth 
feeling your flesh pulled from your bones 
no food in your belly 
single-minded purpose 
of passing the genetic baton 
in the perfect 
tiny red spheres 
who amongst you?
 
and in the midst of all this
this mighty race run
we give you humans our all 
gifting you with our bodies
from time immemorial 
and all we ask in return 
is that when you take our brilliant flesh 
into your bodies
raising us to your lips 
that you pause 
and remember 
the mythic arc of our lives 
from the rivers stone cradle 
into the deep sea and back 
remember
that you are consuming this optimism
and persistence and selflessness
of ours
we salmon becoming human 
 
and all we ask in return is to
honor our gift 
by making the work you do in the world 
extraordinary
burning us as rich bright fuel 
so that the work you do in the world 
is extraordinary.
 
i am salmon



________________________


​
Playing rough
 
so well behaved
during an unbroken
stream of blue days
that I clean forgot
you could play so rough
 
on the last 
hot day of October
your light was
ready to spill over the edge
into darkness
the thin gray horizon
hiding winter 
just 
out of sight
 
then you came in swinging
6 straight days
of house rocking punches
10 inches of
life giving liquid 
falling in the span 
of one mornings cup of coffee to the next
the river gorged
and pushed out of its banks
by the advancing tide
sometimes
you just don’t know 
when to quit
 
as I walk 
more evidence
of your mood
lies strewn across the road
in piles 
of living matter
having delivered
on their promise
that took 
all of the days of spring and summer 
to keep
 
as i sit 
writing this
the thud 
of the surf
calls me to walk 
outside
drawn
by the 
pull of
you and your
knee high foam
and broken trees  
and the rearing 
flagrant
creaming
ladder of waves
that you make from
six thousand miles of sea 
and the thin membrane of land
under my feet
 
and in all of this
you say
it is easy to walk 
in the high meadows of summer
when the light is low in the West
and the world holds still
 
but to really 
know me
you say
i want you here 
in THIS
humbled by cold
salt rimmed eyes
staring into the west 
at me
dressed in grey 
coming at you
 
playing
rough

 
On the 8thday of un broken rain when it finally stopped.
Cascade Head in November of 2006

 
 
 

________________________




the mad queen                                   
 

there are 
dive bars,
gold bars,
high bars 
and low bars
but there’s only one
Columbia River bar.
thank god.
 
we are all her subjects
we who set out
upon the waters
to meet this mad queen 
and she waits for us 
at times calm and patient
at others
gathered in her spring glory 
brown and swollen 
from a thousand upstream tributaries
tithing liquid to her
 
broad shouldered 
salty swells
travel far
to meet her sweet 
earth, rich waters 
in between
rock jetties 
stretched like arms 
out into the sea
 
june of 1969
my brother 
fresh from war 
has built a troller
from mahogany, oak and fir
and I his puller 
age 13
both of us
innocent and untried
that first day of the season
heads held high
breathing deep 
of chill ocean air
and fresh paint
as we slipped our lines 
heading west 
 
dock talk
had told us three big boys 
had crossed the bar
at slack
how lucky are we?
but the robot woman’s voice
on the weather channel
told us differently
16 foot swell at 9 second intervals
Is that bad? I remember thinking.
 
our smooth run down river
turning into a freight train 
line up
of mountainous swells
one stacked on top of the other 
25 five feet from trough to crest
taller than our poles
engine throttled back 
we climb up and up
breaking through
into thin air
slamming down the back side
gear breaking free on the deck
 
and another
green water over the bow
this time
out into the frenzy of the bar
no worse timing than this
river in full flood 
and big storm  
over the horizon
sending its rhythmic 
messengers out ahead
 
my brothers voice rises
over the scream of the wind
“I’m turnin’ back next chance I get”
two story swells
growing to three stories
imprisoned in a rhythmic battering 
me on the back deck 
thigh deep
in crisp foaming sea water
 
the queen
has dressed in white today
to greet us
the south jetty 
boiling mad
rocket bursts of spray
rising into the air
massive ivory surf on her flanks  
like watching a train wreck
fascinating….deadly
 
2 hours in
shivering uncontrollably 
half from fear 
half from 52 degree water
underneath us 
the river
fanning out 
into open sea
as we glimpse the red light ship 
there’s a space 
in which to power turn
 
turn back to earth
re-turn to all that is solid 
and fragrant 
and known
passing over the still 
white human bones 
buried deep under sand 
of those subjects
that chose 
not to leave 
their mad queen 
alone and unattended
 
there are 
dive bars,
gold bars 
high bars 
and low bars
but there’s only one
Columbia River bar.
 
thank god.

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

                                                                   


RIGHTS NOTICE


- 
All performance photos on this site ©  2013, 
Patrick Dixon & Veronica Kessler  www.PatrickDixon.net  unless otherwise noted.

 - All works on this site are the copyrighted property of the authors. No reproduction without written permission.

- Any media source wishing to use material on this site is asked to contact FisherPoets@comcast.net for permission.