Puget Sound

A hundred centuries have come and gone Since ice sheets carved these waters long Vashon Glaciation, a heavy plough Made islands, fjords, and mountains bow The Salish Sea, a basin deep and grand A testament to a colder land From Lake Missoula's cataclysmic floods To misty shores and ancient woods (Chorus) The seals don't tell all they know While the orcas like to blow The gulls and terns, they fly and dive Keeping ancient rhythms all alive A symphony of tides and gales Of oyster shells and herring tails The Sound keeps secrets in its flow That only ancient waters know The Cascadia Subduction Zone sleeps below Silent, waiting, moving slow In seventeen hundred, it awoke with a roar Shaking mountains, changing shore A history held in the sunken cedar trees A quiet warning on the breeze The Sound remembers, holds the strain From tectonic shifts to pounding rain The Coast Salish, their canoes and nets Before the English and their colonial debts The Oregon Question, a line drawn in sand Dividing people and this sacred land For generations, this place was home Where tribes would hunt and fish and roam Their legends etched on every bay A part of the story, come what may (Chorus) The seals don't tell all they know While the orcas like to blow The gulls and terns, they fly and dive Keeping ancient rhythms all alive A symphony of tides and gales Of oyster shells and herring tails The Sound keeps secrets in its flow That only ancient waters know (Bridge) From misty mountain peaks so high To kelp forests where young salmon lie From eagle's nest to harbour seal's den The story's here for all to see, again and again A fragile balance, a precious gift A hopeful song that lets our spirits lift (Outro) So listen close to the water's gleam And the Puget Sound's joyful, timeless dream The seals don't tell all they know But the orcas like to blow...