Cannon Beach, Oregon

Let’s workshop this poem about a Native-American convocation disrupted by an unexpected attack from anti-whaling activists.

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Cannon Beach, Oregon 

Cedar canoes of the Makah clan—hand-chiseled
black-blue-green-red with ravens, wolves, whales
of Seattle-Seahawk severity—oar along the beach
made famous from The Goonies. Behind the fleet,
parallel to the horizon, looms a vessel—minacious.
“One-Eyed Willy’s pirate ship!” a father calls out 
for laughs from fellow hipsters out in the overcast
sharing—woke signals—in the tribal convocation.

Before any tourist even finds a chance to reflect 
on how the jarring laughter of the indigenous—
proud among them in headdress and face paint— 
does make sense (they live, as their iPhones show, 
in the modern world of TV too), the “pirate ship”
begins blasting off cannonballs. Chanting ceases
right away. The paddles blur and the fleet scatters 
once the target—the sea Makah—becomes clear.

Might this be simply part of the performance, perhaps 
a reenactment of some historical naval attack by us
whites? Wondering such things, the tourists look 
to the browns of sapphire-emerald in the crowd.
And yet they too appear clouded as to any show.
They do not yell or rally or wave ancestral arms
to help clarify the frenzy, to reassure the tourists 
whose weeping children believe this is reality.

But their own Nike youth are crying too, now
that the sea Makah have ditched their canoes 
in fast-food-flab fight for shore, the kerplunks 
too close for a show. It is the whites. Bullhorns 
blare: “Killers!” A fist chant—“Save! The! Whales!”—
awakens from eco sleeper agents among the crowd,
stones ready in hand for the reclaimers of custom.
For most, all this only adds to the confusion.

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This poem is unpublished

Photo: nwcoastindians.wordpress.com/2015/04/28/alex-mccarty-a-modern-makah-artist/