The SuperMoon eclipsed

                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

The moon circled 'round to see what had been done

To stop the fires

To quiet the unrest

She was so close

She spoke to the earth

In quiet tones

In whispers waiting to hear

If someone was listening

So many turned up to listen

She smiled and spoke her moon talk

The children played and danced 

ethos and despair

NOTES TO ANYONE when they see their community being changed to accommodate a few:

The more people writing the better. So, some ideas: 

1. writing about the flora and fauna maybe in the form of interviews, maybe as informative about different species. 

2. historical aspect, here's where you have a lot of depth, when you intervene with nature to solve a problem today, ie a quick fix, what are the potential outcomes, does it really solve your problem, ie more farmland. 

3. the idea of legacy, what are we telling the future generations. 

4. fiscal responsibility, a few benefit but everybody pays. 

5. misinformation, using data randomly to prove a point, to get people to give you something, or sell someone on something, so you can make a buck (ethics and morality). 

6. community, despair, involvement, giving up, what happens to the ethos of a community that is continuously trashed instead of respected. 

Each topic requires a different kind of writing, and maybe each subject can be published on a different platform. If you have a radio station, you can have a question and answer call in on all of the above.

Say Something When the River Flows

Say Something When the River Flows















The ripples bring a gentle song
Woven through the wings and feathers
Floating slowly
Following the trail
Where it stops to when it wants to meet
The day it has without a smile
As the river kicks you out so slowly
It twists you round to catch on the rocks
In circles or roots and trunks
Until you're so dizzy you don't what hit you
Your head's under water but you're breathing fine
And then you're crazy and out of your mind

You gave your all to the river Similkameen
And it gave it's all to you
Your end and your beginning
Because even when you lose you're winning
You give all of you
And the river gives all to you
How many times can you tell the river
Even when you are crying from the fires
Even when you can only moisten the river bed
You're beautiful

This constant rippling is singing for you
Because all of your loves the etching
Falling river walls
With all its perfect imperfections
Say nothing
Don't be grieved that you couldn't stop the change
The spirit would've followed you
Swallow your pride
The river loved you in that moment
Even now when you gave up and let the sapling
Struggle to find it's sweet earth mother
In the harsh clay of the waterfront
Another starts across the way
As the river swells with winter's pride

Loving in the Heat of the Burning Mountain

Loving in the Heat of the Burning Mountain

The mountain wall threw itself up
In the air that burned that day
A thousand years had turned to smoke
Flashed up and out
Searching with its blue yellow fingers
Scratching out the ancient trees
Leaving black behind
India ink black outlines of great firs
That wanted nothing more than
A small space on the mountainside

So wrapped up I was in the arms
Of the great mountainside
Home to wonderful eagles and otters
Bands of Kingfishers hovering
Presenting themselves to me
All attentive to what I could bring
To that grandeur and all I could give
Was a paltry poem or two
A song of being wrapped by attentive
Love and beauty and then unwrapped
Like never before with an internal
Love of all that beauty
Shared in the space of the burning mountain
The core of all that beauty still remained
Unapproachable seeming to escape
A desire for closeness
Yet leaving behind an intimacy
Of pain of loss of a life of giving
Without return
Of growth to the distant sun
Of nights under the distant moon 
Of being wrapped and unwrapped
Of folding and unfolding
Of giving all without any return
That being is a being of all
Ashes to ashes and dust to dust

quote from Robert Graves

If I were a woman I'd despair. The supply of good women far exceeds that of the men who deserve them. 
There is no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money either.
Being a poet is a condition rather than a profession.

Fires Burning in the Mountains

Road from Pateros to Twisp in Washington
What I happily missed while I was there

Fires Burning in the Mountains

The fires burned in the mountains

As plumes of dark grey rose up and 

Spread themselves across the upper midwest

And down the Mississippi River Valley

The mountains glowed at times

More than a sunset could

More than the sun itself

In seconds a bright fire took over

An entire road

And to stay or go

As the furnace drove itself

Between an alley of ponderosa

Ripe to ignite that day

To return to safety

But where when they continued

Everywhere

Back to safety and the lake

Back to the cool

Lake's depth

A swim across

A struggle for a breath

With the waves and cold

Seemed like a welcome

Reprieve

But on into the winding road

Down the mountain to 

The Grand Coulee Dam

That waited for me in the

Scottish Highlands 

Or so it seemed that day

Until I took a breath in

And my eyes teared up

And my lungs screamed for oxygen

But it was afterall, so beautiful

You asked me what I want...

Moonlight on Trout Lake with my Sister

You asked me what I wanted and I can answer that.

I want to have fun, be happy and write until words pour out of every pore in my body, indiscriminate writing, about anything and everything. I want to be around people who live their life to the fullest, who want to make a difference with their words, not just spout words because they are so full of themselves or their egos. I want to be around people who love so intensely their love hurts them from the inside out because it wants to burst out and color everything around them. I want to love like that with no concern about how much, or what it's worth, or who deserves it, or what I can get out of it. That's how I wake up in the morning, how I prepare food for the people I care about, why I sing a soulful song for a friend, or dance on the beach to the music of the pounding waves, or laugh and burst with happiness when I hear "ashes to ashes and dust to dust", or listen when a loved one cries when they're hurt. That's what I want. I want my books about girl friends to bring my family together, so my sister can get a break and my sister-in-law and see her worth in the world around, and my brothers can look at each other and see how much they care.

It may sound silly for me to think these childish thoughts, 

but there they are, 

they motivate me to care, 

they bring me somewhere, 

where I want to be, 

with people who can see into each others eyes 

and be real in the moment 

with themselves and each other,

the best of who they are.

Wonderment wander meant won dear mint

Road from Pateros to Twisp in Washington
What I happily missed while I was there

So the words progress as they write themselves, so many words and even more meanings. A song that is a poem of love and praise, written and sung for decades and finally for the bride to be. Thanks for all life has given me, for everything I have done and can do. For the song of the future and the song of all of us.
For two weeks I walked the desert mountains and finally plunged into a mountain lake to feel the freedom of weightlessness of being in space without pain or pressure. It was a risk, because by plunging into the unknown without understanding my capacity for physical stress I raised the bar and toyed with my own reality, my muscle memory of the past and strangely enough tested the boundaries of a friendship in the making.
So I jumped in and watched the mountain disappear slowly instead of coming closer, a mirage of sorts, but a reality also. Because as I got closer to the mountain, I became more fatigued and chilled and the relative distance increased whereas the physical distance grew shorter. 
I could not go on without help and luckily I reached out and unknown to me helped arrived both psychologically in a friend who did not criticize and in strangers who only wanted to help. Another lesson......