One of our favorite places in the city is Poet’s Beach. This sacred space where we connect more tangibly with the river — so we can take better care of it — was unveiled quietly as a pathway lined with engraved stones, and a sandy beach, in 2014 during Sarah’s first year as a bike tour guide, thanks to activism by the Human Access Project to permit and fund the pathway to the beach. It became a place to layer story upon story: the truly ancient layer of the river and rock underneath, the story of the First Peoples who came here, and then the stories that were layered again and again above those, traders who brought new exposure to diseases, trappers who destroyed species, settlers who claimed land, other words for “conquerors.”
There are so many layers of the city in this story: stumps, struggle, the Oregon Trail, shipping trade, timber barons, Depression, teetotalers, corrupt police, destructive public works, hippies and their detractors, a Republican environmentalist, urban renewal that was at first racist and exploitative and then a little sensible (with an undercurrent of racism and exploitation), pollution, parks, sewage system revamp, and a tiny bit of rewilding. Oh Portland.
Here you have your poetry, which sings (indeed) the sacred song of all of it.
Favorite poem by Jordan, 4th grade:
I am the Willamette,
and my memory is long.
In the choir of my currents,
I sing a sacred song.
Come and seek my silent places
where the heron stands like stone.
Come and let my song embrace you,
seep into your heart and bone.
Poem by Sorcha, 4th grade
Sit down and listen
Sister river tells me things
Tales of Mother Earth
Poem by Pierce, 2nd grade
The river shivers,
from the mountain’s
melted snow.
Poem by Phebe, 12th grade
somewhere along the way
the river picked up some
of our hopes and dreams
and gave us back serenity.
Poem by Claire, 4th grade
The river holds a gentle current,
like a piano filled with music.
Poem by Ashi, 6th grade
River you run within me
Poem by Athena, 12th grade
The stories will change,
the surroundings will change,
the people will change, and
the river will keep on flowing
through the ages.
Poem by London, 4th grade
The river is a dream,
asleep while awake,
it flows.
Poem by Caitlin, 4th grade
The Willamette flows proudly under the
bridges of the Rose City, to join her
Mother River the Columbia in the North
and her Father Ocean the Pacific in the West.
Poem by Mikaela, 5th grade
Never slam it,
our river Willamette
Poem by Amy, 1st grade
A river is wonderful.
It keeps the fish from drying out.
Poem by Patrick, 4th grade
A river is nature’s
public swimming pool.