30

because our coast is our future

a space we share with the many

now working loving and playing

and the many who will come after

working and loving and playing

because this is where we walked

this is where we swam

and the pictures taken here

beneath the riverbed

are lines to our anchor souls

because the ecos in our economies

is the same ecos as in our ecologies

and our not dwelling on this fact

lays waste to all homes of all things

that may be dwelling here

because this is where we walked

this is where we swam

and the pictures taken here

beneath the river bed

run right through our lotic souls

because our coast is our future

a space we will share with the many

now working loving and playing

and the many who will come after

working and loving and playing

Capital—we are coming

and we will defend our coast

link arms and defend our coast

sing this song to defend our coast

walk forward to defend our coast

29

Defenders—Tsleil-Waututh and

Squamish—Yinka Dene and

Wet’suwet’en—Sto:lo and

Gitxzan and Lubicon Cree

and so many more in this

unbroken line—and day and

night labourers nurses teachers

fishermen and foresters—bakers

baristas clerks and caterers—

grandmothers uncles nieces

and friends and acquaintances

who love and console us and

children gamers activists and

students and immigrants of all kinds—

Rise up—we are the people

come upon each other in

streets and on paths through

woods—in parks and alleyways

along piers on rocks overlooking

the sea and amongst the mottled

sides of rivers and streams and

in suburban back yards or the

middle of farms of modest size—

finding we compose a world

outside states corporate profits

or trade agreements and we rise

up together and we rise up

to defend our coast together

28

Defenders—rise up

lift this feeling

for Cormorant and Gull

Sandpiper and Dipper

Petrel Shearwater Grebe

and Bittern and Egret

Great Blue Heron

Kestrel and Killdeer

lift this feeling

for Wood Duck and

American Wigeon the

Scaup Elder Harlequin

and Hooded Merganser

Stellar’s Jay and Hutton’s

Vireo lift this feeling

for Spruce and

Sage Grouse Rock

Ptarmigan and Yellow

Warbler for the living

web lift Bald Eagle Raven

Barn Owl—rise up

Flicker Harrier Towhee

and Thrush—lift this

feeling for the freshets

for the forms loving flight

27

Defenders we travel inland

along rivers and in and out

of streams knowing lotic

systems and unidirectional

flow—riffles glides and pools

the angle at which light strikes

leading to light lost to reflection

Knowing biofilm and water column

algae—moss and liverwort

knowing duckweed and water

hyacinth invasive hydrilla and

cattail tops emerging from

slow water and bladderwort

feeding on small captured organism

Knowing sinuosity and substrate

crayfish with their feather-like gills

salamander and trout and

oolichan and the riparian zone

with otter and beaver and mink and

wolf and bear midst salmon spawning

then alevin then parr then smolt 

Knowing especially the salmon and

bear and cedar and salmon cycling

nitrogen back from seas knowing

magnetoception and the names of

rivers salmon return to and this

circle is love and nowhere does it

include oil spilling from burst pipes

26

Defenders—consider

Bull Kelp and Splitleaf Rockweed

consider Common Coralline Seaweed

and Staghorn Bryozoan consider

Sea Pan and Encrusting Bryozoan

consider Red Jelly Fish

and Crimson Anemone consider

Aggregating and Plumrose Anemone

consider White-plumed Buried

and Swimming Anemone consider

Fish-eating and Tube Anemone and

consider Tube Worms the Giant

Nudibank and Hudson’s Doris

and Yellowmargined Cadlina

See the waters ebbing and flooding

clear for centuries to come see

the play of light on and beneath

waves and the shape of shadow

and light on rock and sand beneath

surface—see Pacific Giant Octopus

and Swimming Scallop see Wrinkled

Dove Shell and Leafy Hommouth

Frilled Dog-winkle and Blue Top

Snail—Northern Abalone and

Speckled Limpet—Red-flecked

Chiton and Giant Sunflower Star—

see all of this and nowhere the stain

of bitumen in the endless days to come

25

because we have damaged it so badly

because of accumulation

because of plastic

because of our cars and motorcycles and trucks

            and RVs and speed boats and

because  of mining metals and smart phones

because we see it but keep doing it

because we find it too easy

because of the sleep called entertainment

because of airplanes and the beauty of the world

            and hotels and beaches in pictures

because of the distance between home and work

because of fruit in winter and a lack of canning

because of highways and innovations in paving

because we are longing

because of the creation of scarcity and want

because of the movie

because of the song

because we weren’t told to think we were told

            to go shopping

because our leaders get paid

because there are those who can pay for

anything and everything and they will

because of the media they own

because of our leaders they own

because of us

because we can change but don’t or haven’t

because of the frog and the pot

24

Folks they were always

here before erasures

no one should have to

face came ashore and

what is a pipeline? What

is an inlet where oil

fills fishing grounds

and rivers wash down

globs of bitumen to spawn

in synthetic seas

but the continuation

of centuries of colonization?

Defenders—elders—others

gathered from all around

see this parliament’s a shell

washed up on a beach with

nothing in it not even sound—

see this oil company it’s

only money burning money

to make money for no ends—

and see this massive crowd

forming—it’s called the people

and the people are coming to

decolonize and to defend