Coos Bay

by Michael Mcgriff

The World's Largest Lumber Port,

the yellow hulk of Cats winding bayfront chip yards,

betting on high-school football

at the Elks Lodge, bargemen,

abandoned Army barracks,

Japanese glass floats, cranberry bogs,

mooring lines, salmon roe,

swing shifts, green chain, millwrights

passing each other like black paper cranes

from one impermanence to the next,

phosphorescent bay water, two tons

of oyster shells, seagulls, beach glass

tumbled smooth in the surf, weigh stations,

off-bearing, front loading, cargo nets,

longshoremen, scabs,

the Indian casino marquee promising

continental breakfast, star-crowned animals

stitched to blue heavens

behind the fog, log booms,

choker setters, gypo outfits, acetylene sparks

falling from the Coast Guard cutter Citrus,

dredging units, gravel quarries, clear cuts,

scotchbroom taking over the dunes,

smokestacks pocked with peep shows

of flame and soot, the year-round

nativity scene and one-armed Santa

in J.C. Penney's alley window,

my grandmother dying just over the ridge,

mother-of-pearl, sea lion calls

in the dark, low tide at Charleston Harbor,

the sound of calk boots

in gravel parking lots, salmon sheen hosed

onto the street, the arch

of a big rig's empty trailer, sand

in all the moving parts,

floodlights, tie-downs, ridge beacons,

great blue herons whispering

through the hollow reeds, the cat piss smell

of a charred meth lab between the V.F.W. hall

and pioneer newspaper museum,

the rusted scrapyard and tank farm.

The drawbridge spans forgotten coal bunkers,

buried fingerprints of Chinese laborers,

rope-riders and mule bones.

Then there's the rain that never sleeps,

it's fallen for seventeen years

to reach the field below our house

where my father and the machinist neighbor

dying of cancer huddle around

an oil drum burn barrel and smoke cigarettes,

a few weeks of newspapers and wood scrap

hiss into ash, trapped angels

under the wire grate they warm their hands over.

The great heave of the Southern Pacific,

sturgeon like river cogs, barnacle wreckage,

cattle-guards. The last of the daylight,

a broken trellis falling into the bay.

This poetry truly is the embodiment of the coast town know as Coos Bay. In fact, Mcgriffs makes sure to not leave out a single detail. In a vague and magical way he is able to describe each aspect of the sea town. He describes what the people are doing, where they are, the workers and where they go after work and even the buried history of the town. I think the speaker is himself, himself reflecting on the town he knows so well. Every person has a strong connection to some place(s) in this world, I think it is evident that Mcgriff certainly has a connection with Coos Bay. Which would make sense because this is where he was born. So, this connection he has with the town has made him an expert, from the “Indian casino marquee which promises of a continental breakfast” the “two tons of oyster shells” and even the “charred meth lab between V.F.W hall” he touches on it all. I don't think he is trying to promote the sea town. If he was doing this I think he would of used more smooth and clear cut sentences and coherent phrases. But, he jumps around from an aspect of the town, to its history to its people. It most certainly isn't necessarily appealing, as it is mysterious. He makes you rush though the words, then go back with the question “is that really what it says?”. Even though it is not a clear picture, he still paints something beautiful, in a way you can only truly understand if you have been to the bleak but lively coastal town. I think this is the point he is trying to make. That you can only truly understand the wonder and mystery of Coos Bay if you have been there, then you can truly understand what he means when he talks about the casino, or the “betting on high school football”, or the “two tons of oyster shells, seagulls, beach glass”. These are things that you can only truly understand if you have spent some times in these sea town, but if you haven't, Mcgriff's poem is a great start. So, in conclusion, I think he is speaking to both an audience who doesn't know anything about his hometown, and who knows everything about it. Which makes this a most wonderful and powerful piece of poetry.