Table of Contents Photo Credit: Lucy Tyrrell, “Where the Moored Boats Hit the Stone (Egypt)” Design and composition: Signe Nichols
ISBN: 9798305405927
Independently Published Published by Anchorage, Alaska www.cirquejournal.com
All future rights to material published in Cirque are retained by the individual authors and artists. cirquejournal@gmail.com
New from Cirque Press Alaska Memoirs: History, Humor and Depth
I still can’t believe that Alaska is lucky enough to have an independent press this good in our far neck of the woods.
– Eric
Heyne,
author, Fish the Dead Water Hard
A Wonderful-Terrible God by Rev. Judith Lethin is a heartfelt memoir of faith, purpose, and her transformative work with Yukon and Kachemak Bay tribal communities. Ordained in 2004, Lethin weaves wisdom and compassion into this unforgettable spiritual journey.
Boardwalk Footsteps: Memoir of an Artist at a Remote Alaskan Cannery by Dot Bardarson. A piece of Alaskan history that could have easily been forgotten, Alaska artist, Dot Bardarson Chatham cannery back to life. In her richly detailed and often amusing memoir, she recounts her family’s summers running this remote Southeast Alaska company offering a vivid portrait of a bygone Alaskan era.
Marian Elliott shares a powerful memoir of loss, resilience, and an 8,000-mile road trip to Alaska. This inspiring journey through unimaginable grief leads to hope, healing, and the rediscovery of light.
Kissing Kevin: An American Nurse in the Vietnam War by Sara Berg, completed before her passing in 2024, honors the courage of Vietnam War nurses. This poignant memoir reveals their untold struggles, immense contributions, and the profound emotional toll of service.
Personal History Alaska History Committed to capturing the stories of Alaska
Someday I’ll Miss This Place
Too by
Dan Branch
In the tradition of Heather Lende and Seth Kantner, these dispatches from the Kuskokwim are insightful, funny and fully human. Dan Branch has written a heart-breaking book filled with wit and wonder.
Mail Order Nurse to the Arctic by Sue Lium
In 1969, a city-bred nurse just out of school answered a call to Kotzebue, AK, a small town, north of Nome, edging the Bering Sea. With humor and cultural insights, this heartfelt memoir of adventure and adaptation is an engaging read about ingenuity in medical care and the author’s crosscultural discoveries and mishaps.
The Fox Boy: A Social Worker in the Alaska Bush, 1968 – 1970 by Gretchen Brinck In 1968, fresh from college, Gretchen Brinck became the lone child welfare worker serving a remote region the size of Oregon State. The Fox Boy recounts her encounters with abuse, injustices against Alaska Natives, controversial adoptions, and the tragic disappearance of Gabriel Fox.
One Headlight by
Matt Caprioli
A deeply moving memoir of identity and belonging, exploring a gay Alaskan’s quest for love and truth amid the challenges of family, place, and risk of judgment.
Transplanted by Birgit Lennertz Sarrimanolis
unsentimental memoir about a life-threatening leukemia diagnosis and an against-all-odds recovery. exhilarating read, Transplanted is a braided story chronicling the author’s excruciating battle with cancer against the backdrop of Alaska’s far northern landscape.
In the Winter of the Orange Snow by Diane S. Carpenter
Tiny’s Stories:
Diane Carpenter’s book is a delightful tramp through the Alaska bush country in the 1950s and sixties through the eyes of a great storyteller. The tales are sobering, hilarious and very informative, each a window on the storyteller’s life and times.
An Athabascan Family on the Yukon River by Theresa “Tiny”
All in Due Time by Kate Troll An emotionally challenging yet satisfying story with a charming cast of characters and a bighearted perspective, All in Due Time is a fitting memoir for our era of genetic surprises.
Demientieff Devlin
Climb to the pilot house roof with Tiny Demientieff on her parents' paddlewheel riverboat, the Sea Wolf, to bask in sights and sounds of the broad Yukon and winding Innoko. Dive into generations of stories from an Athabascan family, revealing the cultural richness, resilience, and deep connection to the Yukon River's lifeblood.
Taking Time: Sailing with My Family in Southeast Alaska by
Larri Irene Spengler
Set sail on a family's heartfelt adventure through Southeast Alaska, blending breathtaking landscapes, family bonds, and the enduring call of the sea.
CIRQUE PRESS
CIRQUE PRESS Fiction
Coming soon, a new novel by Russell Tabbert, The North Face of Summer.
Sky Changes on the Kuskokwim by Clifton Bates
In Kettle Dance: A Big Sky Murder, Kerry Feldman’s storytelling is expertly crafted, visceral and raw though he skillfully manages to squeeze in charm and tenderness to boot.
esque romp,
Drunk on Love: Twelve Stories to Savor Responsibly, an experience that stands tiptoe on the brink of erotica and
What radiates from every page of Paul Haeder’s Wide Open Eyes — Surfacing from Vietnam is a journeyman’s gift for showing the ties that bind ordinary people to their own crystallized struggle with “their Vietnam War baggage.”
Loggers Don't Make Love is a tricky deftly written mystery wherein author Dave Rowan paints a true picture of the rough and tumble life in a logging camp on the Olympic Peninsula.
In rural Alaska, time has eroded the past ways of living; leaving in its place, a complicated straddling of the old and new. This is the story of Kim-boy who straddles that divide.
Larry Slonaker knows the raw world he writes of in Nothing Got Broke. a gritty narrative slashed with liberal dashes of noir…his Montana comes shimmering off these pages..
In Sean Ulman’s Seward Soundboard, Seward, Alaska, is where the sky spinning a fleece of mist is as much a character as a tsunami siren echoing off the mountains.
New
CIRQUE PRESS
Poetry from John Morgan, Mary Eliza
Crane, Eric Braman and Ron McFarland
Bury Me in Cherry Blossoms Let yourself be healed. Let yourself be broken. Let yourself know unconditional love of this poet scratching at your door.
A Variable Sense of Things I
see McFarland coloring the world, a sort of John Constable, beginning with trees and then with tenderness and art making it all come alive.
The Nancy Poems
— Gary Soto, author of New and Selected Poems
Cue the violas, cue the poetry. Lovely and complex, this music, these lines.
— Peggy Shumaker, Alaska State Writer Laureate
Last Call of the Dark
… part a lullaby to the earth, both existential and paradoxical. Simultaneously, we are fragile and mighty, joyful and sorrowful, consumed with hope and hopelessness.
– Monica Devine, author of Water Mask
— Eric Morago, author of Feasting on Sky For book signings, interviews, book club discussions and workshops with these poets, please send an email to cirquepressaknw@gmail.com
Watch for new poetry collections from Robert Fagen, Shauna Potocky, Alan Weltzien and Shannon Gramse
More poetry from Cirque Press
•Echolocation by Kristin Berger
•If Singing Went On by Gerald Cable
•Callie Comes of Age by Dale Champlin
•Lily Is Leaving: Poems by Leslie Ann Fried
•Fish the Dead Water Hard by Eric Heyne
•November Reconsidered by Marc Janssen
•Getting Home from Here by Ann Ward-Masterson
•Salt & Roses by Buffy McKay
•Athabaskan Fractal: Poems of the Far North by Karla Linn Merrifield
•Crossing the Burnside Bridge by Janice Rubin
•Holy Ghost Town by Tim Sherry
•Life Revised by Leah Stenson
•The Lure of Impermanence by Carey Taylor
•Apportioning the Light by Karen Tschannen
•Between Promise and Sadness by Joanne Townsend
•The Dream That Is Childhood by Sandra Wassilie
•Growing Older In This Place: A Life in Alaska’s Rainforest by Margo Wasserman Waring
•On the Beach: Poems 2016-2021 by Alan Weltzien
•The Silty Water People by Vivian Faith Prescott
•Yosemite Dawning by Shauna Potocky
Find Cirque Press titles on Amazon, Ingram and in local bookstores.
For book signings, interviews, book club discussions and workshops with these poets, please send an email to cirquepressaknw@gmail.com
CIRQUE PRESS
Non-fiction, art, meditation, illustrated books
May the Owl Call Again bears witness to the last years of John Haines' life his thoughts, humor, melancholy, a profound awareness of Alaska’s rhythms, and his struggles with engagement in a broken world.
Clif Bates has a knack for illuminating the exotic within the ordinary. Celebrating our shared humanity, this engaging collection of poetry and prose will have you begging for more.
Oasis Earth confirms that we are destroying the biosphere of our Home Planet. We know the causes, consequences, and solutions to this existential crisis, yet we’ve failed to correct it.
Infinite Meditations
By Scott Hanson invites the reader into a multi-faceted, ongoing conversation with the Tao Te Ching, that ancient Chinese classic of mystery and sensibility.
This lullaby by Ann Chandonnet imagines scenes from Abraham Lincoln’s life, from his 1809 winter arrival in the world to his third birthday (1812).
An edgy collaboration of the heart, The Woman Within: Memory as Muse, brings the paintings of Anchorage artist Tami Phelps into the expressive realm of the poetry of her writeranthropologist husband, Kerry Dean Feldman
This heartwarming book by Tami Phelps maps the humor and curiosity of kids as they learn the meaning of words and the logic that underpins their experiences.
Written by Lynda Humphrey, a heartwarming true story of Bebe, a cat rescued in Mexico and her compelling journey to her new home in America.
For book signings, interviews, book club discussions and workshops with these writers, please inquire at cirquepressaknw@gmail.com
From the Editors
Cirque Press has several central aims.
• To give authors and poets in our region more opportunities publish.
• To archive, digitally and in print, the stories, images, and poetry of the current era and to preserve the history and culture detailed in writing we publish.
• Further, and more specifically, we aim to capture the stories of rural Alaska.
We are succeeding and we celebrate ourselves.
Cirque 14:2 marks the 28th issue we’ve proudly brought to life. Beginning in 2009, Michael Burwell worked alone to publish the first several issues of Cirque. Later, adding those listed on the masthead, we became a team, a largely volunteer effort, bringing to the world the best writers, poets and artists of Alaska, the Pacific Northwest and beyond, a region we term the North Pacific Rim.
In 2018, we expanded into publishing, creating Cirque Press. These notes provide updates on the journal and the press. The support of readers, subscribers and contributors sustain us. We thank you for sharing in the excitement of this venture, for supporting Cirque and joining us as we celebrate 16 years in print.
Funding Cirque with Contests
We cover the cost of creating Cirque by holding contests. Cirque 14:2 announces the latest, “Displacement, Placelessness, Homelessness.” The top prizes are pillows -- cute pillows with our logo on one side and the concept of placelessness defined on the other. There will be three poems chosen as top winners and 20 additional poems picked to be published. Participating in contests is fun and it keeps Cirque funded without fundraising drives. The results of the most recent contest, Poems that Move, kick off this issue. To submit, go to cirque.submittable.com and scroll down to the contest heading.
Building Cirque Press
Since 2018, the press has published more than 50 books. In December 2024, we celebrated the release of four memoirs, all by writers based in South Central Alaska. St. Mary’s Episcopal Church provided a perfect venue, as each shared their stories. The Rev Judith Lethin introduced A Wonderful-Terrible God: A Journey of Spiritual Awakening in Native Alaska. Marian Elliott read from Out of the Dark: A Memoir. Dot Bardarson read selections from Boardwalk Footsteps, Memoir of an Artist at a Remote Alaska Cannery. The author of Kissing Kevin: An American Nurse in the Vietnam War, Sara Berg, passed away early in 2024. In a touching tribute, Cynthia Steele read in her place.
The list of books coming out or in the wings is long, but we feel the excitement and accomplishment involved with each and are delighted to meet authors at that daunting edge where the press itself evolves to meet the challenges of growth. There is some urgency to bring these stories, memoirs, and collections to print. They inform all of us, bringing history and insight while shaping our perception of place.
In the last several months, we have completed a tender chapbook by John Morgan, The Nancy Poems, celebrating more than 60 years of marriage. We released Mary Elisa Crane’s Last Call of the Dark, Eric Braman’s Bury Me in Cherry Blossoms and from long-time contributor, Ron McFarland, A Variable Sense of Things.
Approaching publication are these books. Juneau authors Bob Fagen and Larri Spengler will bring us, respectively, Dancing Away, a collection of poems and Taking Time: Sailing with my Family in Southeast Alaska, a sort of how-to and memoir covering 18 years sailing in waters of the area. Cirque Press will soon release The North Face of Summer by Fairbanks author, Russell Tabbert.
Shannon Gramse, former editor of Ice-Flow is working with us on a stunning collection titled, The Lost Last Poems. We are working with Alan Weltzien on a chapbook covering his time trekking in the Himalayas of Nepal titled Into the Khubu “where prayer is carved in stone and carried on wind.”
More new work for 2025
In recent months, Cirque Press signed these new writers:
• Doug Capra, who wraps up 10 years of research on John and Ginger Davidson for The Last Homesteaders, a story both inspiring and tragic.
• Dan O’Neill, of Fairbanks, author of The Firecracker Boys, who’s collected his political cartoons largely from the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner into a book titled The Impertinent Question.
• John Baalke, a poet, who writes from Lake Illiamna and will publish a collection of poems titled, Where Earth and Sky Meet.
• Tess Gallagher, in 2025 we will work with Tess to publish, posthumously, the stories of her companion, Josie Gray, Surrounded by Weasels and other stories of western Ireland.
As these books are released, we will hold celebratory events. Authors will be available for interviews, book signings, book club visits and private gatherings with those who love stories, poetry, Alaska and the region. Please email Cirque Press to set up an event: cirquepressaknw@gmail.com
Passings
We are saddened to share news of the passing of Karla Lynn Merrifield. Her poetry collection. Athabaskan Fractal was one of the first books published by Cirque Press. This poignant verse by Karla Merrifield was published recently in Cirque:
Psalm of Mist
Surely spruce-forested islandscapes and confused ocean currents shall recreate all my breaths and I will dwell in the realms of clouds forever.
Following the book release party described above, we were shocked to learn that Dan Elliott, husband of author, Marian Elliott, died suddenly the day after the event. We offer condolences to Marian and her family. Her memoir, Out of the Dark, is an homage to Dan, the “love of her life.”
Catching up
To catch up on submissions Cirque 15:1 (#29) will include everything submitted between March 21, 2024 and March 21, 2025. It will be published in June 2025.
If one gets the impression of colorful balloons floating all around us, you’ve got the picture. But what great joy to work with the authors and poets of both the journal and the press. We celebrate their success and share their grief and loss.
And now the days grow longer. We will have time enough and friends.
Cirque: A Literary Journal for the North Pacific Rims
Sandra L. Kleven, Publisher and Mike Burwell, Editor
Cynthia Steele, Associate Editor
Paul K. Haeder, Projects Editor
Signe Nichols, Designer
Published twice yearly near the Winter and Summer Solstice Anchorage, Alaska
Our mission: to build a literary community and memorialize writers, poets and artists of the region.
Volume 14, No. 2
POETRY CONTEST
Christianne Balk Poetry in Motion 16
Contest Winners 18-19
Finalists 20-33
NONFICTION
Paul K. Header A Kid in California Heading to the Brig 35
Bonnie Harris Did You See Any Bears 44
Royal Kiehl There Was A Farm 47
Doug Margeson A Day In Seattle, Washington 49
Marilyn Stablein Reflections on Judith Roche: A Northwest Legacy 56
FICTION
Lucas Cunningham Beartop 61
Roland Goity Where the Lairs Are 66
Laura Kalpakian Arithmetic 70
Lalo Morales Movimiento 74
Judi Nyerges How I Found My Spirit Companion 78
Doug Pope Mr. Warner 79
PLAY
Daniel Penner Cline Love Mosquitoes 91
POETRY
Alexandra Ellen Appel Correction, American Dream 106
Lana Hechtman Ayers Learning Without Brains Nocturne 107
Thomas Bacon Instructions for Leaving Darkness 108
Donna Beaver Kóoshdaa káa Haibun 109
Jennifer Bisbing "God's Country" Ranks Most Guns Per Household 111
Cindy Buchanan Bonanza 111
Doug Capra Nuts & Bolts 112
Dale Champlin Last Year We Were Naturalists 113
Susan Chase-Foster Recently 114
Margaret Chula An Unexpected Brightness 114
Lucy Cotter St. Louis Girls, 1957 115
Mary Eliza Crane Horizon 115
Eileen Walsh Duncan Anthropomorphic Possum 116
Judith Duncan I Have Lost 117
Roger Fisher Walking the Walks 117
Mary Fontana An Instant 119
Leanne Grabel Treatment Center 120
Beth Hartley The Light Will Automatically Turn on in Water 121
Paul K. Haeder King Tide Pulling Seal Carcass While Gaza Disappears 122
Jim Hanlen Careful Calling Up the Bear 123
Bob Hicks Oxytocin 124
Tamara Holman I'm the Type of Person Who Doesn't Care What the Old Ladies Said 125
Jaqualyn Johnson (Two Poems) Guest at the Back Door 126 Caged 126
Jill Johnson Scrubland 127
Susan Johnson Midwinter 127
Karen Jones In the Early Spring 128
Taya Kesslau Hundred Acre Woods: Vacancy 129
David Kiffer Aids To Navigation 129
Mercedes Lawry Locating 130
Eric le Fatte The Dead River 130
Michael Magee Fiumei Cemetery, Budapest 131
Phyllis Mannan Ode to Manzanita Beach Clouds 132
Jayne Marek Kitchen 133
Shirley Martin Lines 134
David McElroy Becoming 135
John McKay Leavetaking 136
Karla Linn Merrifield Metaphors of Basic Chemistry 137
John Morgan Postcard from Nancy 138
Steve Neuberger Christmas Dream 139
Dion O'Reilly Corvid 139
Dixie Partridge Old Small Towns, West 140
Timoth Pilgrm Livid Regret 140
Shauna Potocky Under the Bell Tower 141
Mandy Ramsey Current, Clutch, Chrysalis 142
Diane Ray A Still-Small Sculpture Speaks 143
Tim Sherry Blood Sport 144
Judith Skillman Penelope Weaves Forsythia 144
Craig Smith The Footrace 145
Kathleen Stancik Orchestra 145
Cynthia Steel I Now Pronounce You 146
Richard Stokes Caps 147
Joanna Streetly Thrown 148
Mark Strohschein World War III 148
J.T. Townley A Sasquatch's Lament 149
Lucy Tyrrell Anaktuvuk Mask 150
John Van Dreal Christmas Card to Sammy 150
Ken Waldman Santa Claus 151
Emily Wall In the face of his anger 152
Lillo Way To a Downtown Gull 152
John Weeks Paddling to Where the Sun Sets 153
Alan Weltzien (Two Poems) Waltzing with Arlo 153 Great Blue (Ardea hernodias) 154
Melody Wilson Interruption 154
Tonja Woelber Glen Alps 155
Robin Wooman (Two Poems) Ill Wind 155
Text to My Daughter on Mother's Day 155
FEATURES
Cynthia Steele Artists of Cirque—Capturing Images in a Journalist’s Shoes: An Interview with Photographer Jack Broom 157
REVIEWS
Tanyo Ravicz Writer as Guide, and Guide as Writer – A Review of Michael Engelhard’s What the River Knows: Essays from the Heart of Alaska (Hancock House Publishers, 2024) 164
Eric Braman A Review of Sherri Levine’s I Remember Not Sleeping (Fernwood Press, 2024) 165
FEATURE
Cynthia Steele A Tale of Two Deaths—A Snake and a Late Amends: The Soirée Events of August 2024 166
CONTRIBUTORS…170
POETRY CONTEST: Poetry in Motion
Christianne Balk
Good poems come from roots.
—John Haines
Dear Poets in Motion,
When I agreed to judge Cirque’s Poetry in Motion contest, I thought it would be a straightforward process to look at your poems from various definitions of motion. Wrong! The depth, subtlety, and complexity of the submissions scrambled my attempts to find such a linear approach. So I printed out hard copies, gathered them in a big manuscript box, and carted them up to the mountains. I settled into a cabin for a long, rainy weekend by the woodstove, wondering—which of these poems stir themselves into a whole experience greater than its parts? Which transports the reader most completely? And which forms itself in a way that transfers meaning and emotion most powerfully? I followed my gut, that is, my senses, my body, my breath.
Many of these poems share aesthetic qualities I value. For example, one of the greatest joys for this reader is to hear a voice—or voices—offering surprising points of view. The imaginative cannery worker who captures hard, repetitious physical labor with unflinching rhythms (“I’m No Mermaid”); the playful, pun-filled, physics-infused monologue of a quantum particle (“E2=(pc)2+(mc2)2n”); and the fears of a young vulture facing her first long flight (“Salt Creek”) immediately caught my attention.
Novelty alone, of course, is never enough. The voice(s) in a poem must somehow speak convincingly. How does this happen? John Haines, in his essay “Roots” (Living Off the Country), points to the origin of such credibility: “…good poems come from roots…I don’t necessarily mean that the work must grow out of a certain place on the map…the work, and the life, must have their origin in a place of conviction for the poet…it may be an entirely imaginary place invented for the poem…a search for that place…or even an exit from it…” We see this in the musings of a parent entering the world of a child who enters the world of foxes (“What Foxes Do”); in one studying and finding an inter-species affinity with salmon redds (“Going Home”); in another who allows their awareness to drift from their human body into the bodies of the surrounding trees and back again, mysteriously made whole in twenty short lines (“Walking”); and in the quiet recollection of a strange seasonal shift that makes the weather itself come alive (“Winter Memory”). In each of these, the source of authenticity can only come from the specifics of the individual writer’s/ speaker’s real and imaginary lives.
In an interview with David Stark and Robert Hedin, John Haines also speaks of how his training in art influenced his view of poetry: “I do tend to see a poem as an object, an actual figure defined in space and time. I like to feel the thing has some graspability and solidity…” (Living Off the Country). There is delight in reading a poem well shaped with craft, visual substance, and music. To be stopped in our tracks by the swift, short flight of an insect down the page in short couplets fueled with startling verbs (“bee dance”); to stand alongside a wildfire fighter
Janet Klein
Anchored
as they navigate oncoming flames and a route to safety in sixteen long lines, end-stopped to create a gash across the paper as sharp as a fire break (“Escape Fire”); to hover above a fast-moving boat zigzagging down a river (“She Rides the Athabasca”); and to witness a bright slash of cyclists in fourteen minimalist lines, one of the shortest curtailed sonnets I’ve ever read (“On the Road in Bellingham”)—all give the pleasure of “solidity” and “graspability.”
In addition to the visual graphics of concrete poems, I’m fascinated with the ways in which rhythm, meter, and line phrasing can forge physical sensibility. I find myself pulled into the determined movements of a young child as she is drawn to a cliff in seven couplets driven by suspended sentences that come together in a sonnet’s swift turn of self agency (“Endangered”); the tough, indelible textures, tastes, and tones of the Russian countryside conveyed in twelve concise couplets (“Rachmaninov”); and the vivid felt-sense of watching snow turn to rain that concludes in a powerful quintet (“Grieving Climate Change in a January Rain, Chugach Mountains, Prince William Sound”).
Reading your work that weekend in the Cascades, I was impressed by the community and relationships your poems bring. I appreciate the conversations, dialogues, disagreements, and insights you invite your readers to share. I felt included as I read of cycling through memories while addressing a wooden horse (“Carousel Horse”); of sewing scraps of fabric together at night (“Why Aren’t you Here?”); of friends responding to a respected teacher (“Our Poet Friend Who Must Wear An Oxygen Mask Sends Us a Prompt, Define Blue”); of the vulnerability of animals (“How the Deer Move”); of what we might learn by listening to the seemingly inanimate forces around us (“Ask the Flowers What They Want to Say”); of a healing that occurs while living for decades in one community (“slowing down”); of the quick, insightful exchange of an elder speaking to a child (“Break Up on the Kuskokwim, A Haiku (for Jonah)”); of the exploration of the long-term consequences of a betrayal that takes place one night in a camp (“One Time by Black River”); and of the compassionate connecting of the consciousnesses of whales, swans, and humans in prose-like stanzas (“After Bathsheba Demuth”).
I laughed, questioned, cried, argued, and was stunned into silence as I read, often feeling as if I were surrounded by a group of high-spirited, difficult-to-corral visitors on the brink of discovering something new. How glad I am that you showed up!
With thanks,
Christianne Balk Seattle, Washington September 17, 2024
CONTEST WINNERS
Mary Odden
One Time by Black River
We woke up with caribou walking through us like city people in those movie streets, the purposeful migration. We were rocks in their stream. Their feet click; it’s what woke us.
We weren’t hunting, but our stranger was. He shot a bull with big horns by his tent, the blast shook stones awake, splashed us with wild eyes running and was the start of the end of everything I could see. It was the start of now.
For days after, we watched them one by one startle at an empty footprint stinking with fear.
I don’t remember what I hoped for before that morning.
We would have gone looking for them later we said and hunted them, and he could have killed one then, and we could have killed one then, but after they were gone, the morning reset, this unspoken broken as we two have ever been together, polite with the world and sometimes distant, our love rolled up and still unread in the early morning.
They came to us that one time, and through us, brushing against our camp while we weren’t hunting except still in dreams for magic. They came and won’t come again.
Sheary Clough Suiter
She’s Come Undone (rust paper, reclaimed muslin, bees wax, thread)
Carey
Taylor
Endangered
It was a pull greater than her mother in the kitchen or her father at the boathouse.
Greater than sugar frosted flakes or fried eggs or sitting on the outside stoop with her yellow dog.
Greater than her brother’s freckled cheeks in the bassinet, or Captain Kangaroo on the black-and-white television.
More urgent than her little rain jacket hanging from the doorknob in the mudroom. It moved her feet
Barbara
Hood
Walking
A body of crooked bones is still a body curved and turning but still moving still parting the air it passes through the moss and dogwood on the forest floor the soft-packed earth on the trail
Wind-swept birch extend gnarled arms of welcome, like kindred spirits, to the body that walks on twisted spine and knobby feet aiming to balance uplift its bearing make peace with the uneven world.
in their rubber-toed sneakers down the narrow sidewalk, past jangle of flagpole, the wire-brushed lighthouse waiting for paint.
At edge of cliff she gazed beyond the serrated rocks, to the swirl and whoosh of kelp—
to the glisten of their black and white bodies, their squeaky whistles and chirps.
Mandy Ramsey
Aspen Light
Jayne Marek Lorelei
“Endangered” first appeared in Carey Taylor’s new poetry collection Some Aids to Navigation, Moonpath Press, September 2024
FINALISTS
Luther Allen
slowing down
at first when i moved to the mountain i raced up and down the gravel road sometimes close to 50 just hitting the high spots. that was what i learned on the long dirt roads of the southwest. if you wanted to get someplace you floorboarded the straightaways and fishtailed the curves. here it was the crackling push and pull of getting to work and fleeing work. and it irritated me down at the paved 3-way stop when none of the locals would signal their turns forcing me to slow and wait out their intentions. a failure of reverence.
now after ten years the slow sleep of rain working closer to the patience of fungi and slugs i’m down to 20 on the gravel — you see, there’s the hump in the road that greg’s deaf dog likes to lie just below and you never know if he’s there or not and i don’t like to billow dust on joe and peggy’s ornate yardwork.
cleanse the eyes of the spirit, i’m told. if it’s a serious journey then it’s a journey without end. why be in a hurry?
and at the three way stop? i haven’t used my turn signal in years.
Jennifer Bisbing
Sharon
Brown
On the Road in Bellingham
Eight sleek cyclists slide single file in a narrow line like radiant fish, a bright neon smear of green, yellow, pink alongside the road, then swerve abruptly of a single mind to the center, audaciously occupying the wide space with their bright thin frames.
Rachel
Blume
Going Home
The salmon have spawned, translucent eggs clustered in clear estuaries, bathed in fresh oxygen. Hatching in the redds, they imprint on this place, these rocks, these currents, to embark for the ocean and then return again and again. How do they construct a journey they’ve only seen in reverse? What gene carves this watery map into the bone? What I mean to say is: when my mother lets me, fresh off the plane, gather her into my arms after whole seasons apart, I look to my little son, thinking— Imprint. Imprint. Imprint.
Phyllis Green Green Eyes Pink Pearls
Nard Claar
Team Vismo
Susan Campbell
Grieving Climate Change in a January Rain
Chugach Mountains, Prince William Sound
Light seeps slowly into winter mornings, unsnarls the shapes of trees, reveals mountains where moments before there was only a scrim of darkness.
The cries of murrelets arrive with the light as they rise from the sea’s surface. The forest catches their calls, the canopy laced with keer-keer.
For months, snow has been blanketing the Sound, the trees groan with the weight of it. Every creek bed, ridge, and mountain pass is inundated, tall stands of alders have disappeared. We ski over buried tangles we can never traverse in other seasons.
Higher and higher, we climb out of the valley, follow marten tracks across pristine snow, aware that the changing forecast is no longer just about weather.
In the middle of the night we wake to the clatter of rain on the cabin’s metal roof, the whoosh of snow sloughing from laden branches.
By morning, billions of hemlock and spruce needles drip steady streams of water, same as they do in summer, except in summer it does not break your heart.
Needles on Rock
Richard Stokes
J Carraher
Two Poems
What Foxes Do
once small, my child liked to imagine himself a fox velveteen paws padding silently through talcum snow until his whiskers went from milk to sable, fleet spoor moving toward some middle place, skulking through dark tunnels, finding fields of grackles, rabbits, moonlit dominion far from our overground den choosing the hunt, the solitary daylight slumber, dreaming himself a Lassen wolf his doleful wail, stentorian howling echoing off a faraway hill & we dream, in turn, huddled deep in our earthen burrow that he is still just a fox, his gekkering carried to us through the nursery window night after night after night.
winter memory
there was the year winter came before the fall before the flocks of blackbirds and swallows had the notion to fly south before the harrier found wing to return for winter it moved on soft feet wrapped in a robe of gilded frost in the distance the sky knelt before the falling snow
Winter Sun in Snowstorm
Matt Witt
Mary George
Break Up on the Kuskokwim, A Haiku (For Jonah)
After ice break free High waters kick the first day By boat, Yup’ik boy.
Lenora Good
Why Aren’t You Here?
A storm of unrelenting cold fell during the night, brought snow that stopped before the dog and I went out in predawn dark.
I wear fingerless wool gloves, cut fabric, drink hot tea, sew fabric. The dog curls on the bed. My feet hurt. Had to recut some fabric. What will I do with the pretty scraps? If I make a shirt in primary colors for your ghost, will you wear it?
Jim Thiele
Slow Cascade
Jill Johnson
Blanket remnants, Pendleton Woolen Mills
Jim Hanlen
“Ask The Flowers What They Want To Say”
Bob Gilmore, Painter, Professor, Friend
Some stones could speak volumes. They know the weight of a mountain. They have been around a long time. One time they did say what they think. They said, you live your life, I'll live mine. Then they clammed up, seems like centuries.
Creek argues incessantly. It says clarification, point of order, rebuttal. Stone's argument is with itself. What creek leaves behind is noisier and always seems headed for a fall. Its outpouring is confused for generosity.
I sleep between mountains and ocean. I wake close to the inlet where mudflats are dangerous to standing fishermen. Fish poke their way into their nets. Each day sunlight holds out its hand and I write what it gives me.
Cynthia Steele
Robin Koger
I’m No Mermaid
I’m not proud
I’m just here filleting fish
covered in scales
I’m no mermaid porpoising with dolphins flipping my tail
swimming with seals among seaweed forests and coral gardens blooming with anemones
diving and breaching reaching for oxygen with whales bounding through bubble nets
chasing salmon on their return run in their zero sum game dying to get some where they came from
I’m not proud
I’m just a cannery girl filleting fish covered in scales
Nicole Bauberger
The Dress That’s Always Green
David Laws
Escape Fire
You’ve been trying to kill this fire and were doing quite well at the task, but the wind has turned: now the fire is trying to kill you. You realize you can’t outrun it, less than a quarter-mile away, with your only path up a too-long, steep slope to the top of the ridge, so you start a backburn. It makes you feel a little crazy, this fire you set to intentionally burn a chunk of forest which, minutes ago, you were fighting desperately to save, and now choose to sacrifice in service of your own fragile life. The new flames suddenly race uphill, and you pray they rob fuel from the main fire. You scramble behind it as the big fire closes on you, a steam engine on steroids, vengeful, angry. Trees on either side of you explode into flame. You think, I waited too late. I’m going to die. You can’t breathe. You can’t see. Your poor feet are roasting inside your boots because you are running over live coals. You scream, but can’t hear yourself crying. You can’t go on. Then you stumble across a patch of rocks with nothing on fire, just big enough to curl up in. You unfold a Mylar emergency shield, thin as paper. You get under it, tuck it in, gag, gasp, scream. And suddenly the sound changes, dopplering. The freight train shrieks past. You crawl out into ash and embers, coughing, vomiting, hardly believing you are alive. The fire races on to the ridge, wild, insatiable, indifferent.
John Van Dreal
Retreat—Hesitant Lycanthrope (oil on panel)
Valkyrie Liles
How the Deer Move
The deer move like butterflies it’s unpredictable. Imagine being so large and still being prey.
Women can imagine. Knowing by instinct: vulnerability and all of the ways to die.
I don’t pity the deer, women or butterflies.
No matter how anxious an existence there is always something like liberation.
You can see it in the way the deer lay in the grass, when they think no one is watching.
Dan MacIsaac Two Poems
bee dance
i samba tigered across comb
streaking over golden hexagons
bright honey ingots and wax cells of celibates
cultured for fiery flight
Phyllis Green
I Am Woman
Vol. 14 No. 2
ii
prime mover zip-zapping
protracted dance angling light
jitterbug sparking bronze
jigging gilt spice
oh sweet sweet beeline
Rachmaninov
He could batter keys hammer and tongs or play the steel strings like a carillon ringing
over a summer field of chamomile and daisy.
His song haunted by steppe: felt boots dancing, susurrus of aspens in the Russian spring, and smoke-cured tea— caravan leaves steeped, heated by steam— and cut with torrid water
tapped from a samovar welded from iron.
His smithy hands always hard
at the forge, banking the fire, to craft a score light and clear as crystalline air cast from the east.
Morning Clouds Matt Witt
Lynda Myers
Two Poems
Carousel Horse
You are frozen longing, nostrils flare legs galloping in air, ears prone mouth open wide, teeth bared eternally leaping still as stone.
Decades ago many joy-colored mounts waltzed me around, wind whipping my hair. I missed the brass ring each up and down grasping for dreams out of reach at the fair.
Now you travel my front room. Unbroken stillness of hooves with no goal saddled with yearnings left unspoken thundering nowhere on your brass pole.
Do you hunger for a child’s laughter? I savor silence in your ever after.
Salt Creek
When she smells death the summer-born vulture finds the carcass cleans the earth of its losses. She was born for this.
But to migrate Sunshine Coast to Mexico she must first cross the Strait’s water-chilled air. She is scared. She can’t swim. Her muscles won’t flap wings that far.
The youngling watches the old ones, learns to live she must soar. She retches like them losing excess weight, expels on her legs to adjust body heat.
She lifts with the others into the thermals spirals thousands of feet, hovers then plunges down down to the Salt Creek canopy. With no vocal organs she can only hiss her triumph in this first oasis on the long journey to her winter home.
Jennifer Bisbing Ketchum
Mary Odden
After Bathsheba Demuth
A whale thinks. Do we know what she thinks? A whale will put her body between her baby and a whaling boat. Even as the whalers are finishing her death, she holds her calf to her side. Consider another way of knowing. It may be that a woman has been a whale, a woman who gave herself up after she listened to a sleep song. We named her with a number, for the barrels of oil she produced. *
One at a time, swans practice the journey. The mate swims with two cygnets, still grey and small and flightless, a second family laid and tended after the flood. The second nest was secret, but not from eagles. Four cygnets appeared, a surprise to our notebook. Then there were two, have been two, always one giant and complete swan beside them. Now the leaves are gone and one swan at a time practices absence.
* * * *
Faithful, attending to others of our species, of our families. As touch recedes, as notes of music recede to thought, what is left of faith? We are unmoored from earth, lake, sky. What is a mother until we are born? After her blood swims away? The illusion of our separate being, shadow of wing over us, leaving.
Charles Hertz
Warren Rhodes
E2 =(pc)2+(mc2)2
They might be giants, but me – quantum as they come: a particle, man.
A breaker of laws, especially the speed limit, leaving luxons and bradyons choking in the cosmic dust.
I’m special, relatively speaking. The coats call me names: hypothetical, imaginary, inconsistent –a light-wait violator of causality, if you can wrap your head around that. But it doesn’t add up –energy and 4-momentum, you see. Now you don’t. (My little joke.)
A tacky one, they sneer, but much is Greek to me. It’s enough to give rise to instabilities.
And then there’s Feinberg telling everyone about my excitations. What a standard deviant. (All we can do is say a mass for him – he needs it.)
Outer Limits
Jan Tervonen
Mary Ellen Talley
She Rides the Athabasca
arm stretched out firm grasp dipping an oar into white churl rising droplets glimmering sun cliff striations gray eons carved this river route she dips her bending into rough glide the yellow raft adventure buoy sprinkled spray or glacial facial splash current cascades her forward quick she skirts around boulders as long as she holds the oar at 90 degrees pulls in synchrony all that adrenalin of turbulence behind her she heeds the Athabasca the lone osprey perched high on a lodgepole pine and the call of a coxswain
Norma Sadler
Rowing in Place
Overlap Jim Thiele
NONFICTION
Paul K. Header
A Kid in California Heading to the Brig: A personal journey of love for a strong mother to the land of the rising sun and a new pathway out of conscientious objector status
Every war is a war against children.
— Egalntyne Jebb, founder Save the Children a century ago.
In this time of war insanity, a time where the USA and its vassals are feeding the military industrial complex, throwing down with the people of Ukraine and Russia the dirty bombs called Depleted Uranium, and when a nuclear war scenario whereby the thugs in US politics believe a limited nuclear conflagration can be won by the mighty red-white-and-blue, diving into a memoir of a man who took the conscientious defector route is both profound and prescient.
I met Robert Norris the new fashioned way—he’s been reading my polemics over at Dissident Voice for years. He reached out to me, wondering if I’d like to read his most recent book, and so, here we are—two fellows of a different feather communicating from our abodes: mine in Oregon and his in Japan.
These introductions to people I have, that is, this key holing into their lives, immersing into their dreams and sharing their gifts of living benefit me more than they know. Just learning their avocations and then welding connections to my own life into theirs has happened so many times over the course of decades:
I found your website through something of a circuitous route. I first listened to a Courage to Resist podcast interview with Dan Shea and got interested in his story and background. A Google search took me to your interview with him for LA Progressive. From your bio, I did another search and first found some of your Dissident Voice stories and finally landed on your website, where I spent the next few hours…
So that brings me to the reason I’m writing to you. My life story and tribute to my mother was published in January by Tin Gate, a U.K. hybrid publisher of memoirs, travel books, and biographies. I hope I’m not being presumptuous in thinking you might be interested in looking at it with an eye toward a possible review, or perhaps passing it along to others who might be interested in whatever happened to some of us old-timers who told the military to fuck off way back when. The following summary is from the book’s back cover.
‘The Good Lord Willing and the Creek Don’t Rise: Pentimento Memories of Mom and Me’ traces the trials, tribulations, and unbreakable bond of two Pacific Northwest characters. Kay Schlinkman grows up on the banks of the Columbia River in the 1930s and 1940s. She overcomes a small logging town’s ostracism in the late 1950s for her divorce, excommunication by the Catholic Church for remarrying, severe criticism and rejection for defending her son’s refusal to go to war, and the burden of paying off her second husband’s gambling debts. She takes night classes to become qualified as a legal secretary in her fifties and continues to work until she’s seventy-eight.
Robert Norris goes to military prison as a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War, embraces the counterculture upon release, wanders the world in search of his identity, and eventually lands in Japan, where he finds his niche as a university professor, spends two years as the dean of students, and retires as a professor emeritus. Despite their separation by the expanse of the Pacific Ocean, Robert and Kay maintain a lifelong commitment of love, respect, and support that enriches both their lives. This story provides a heart-warming example of how far a mother and son can go in maintaining their bond against all odds. A must read for all mothers and sons, and for those who’ve wondered what the road less traveled would’ve been like had they taken that first step.
Robert Whiting, author of “Tokyo Underworld” and “You Gotta Have Wa,” wrote: A most impressive achievement by a highly talented writer…an emotionally powerful memoir that spans nearly a century and several continents. Riveting and rich in detail with passages that evoke Hemingway and Maugham, it draws you in and doesn’t let up. For Japanophiles, the sections on life in Osaka and Kyushu offer important lessons on cultural assimilation. You come away from this book with gratitude to the author for having written it and respect for a life well lived.
Michael Uhl, author of “Vietnam Awakening” and “The War I Survived was Vietnam,” wrote: A bumpy,
coming-of-age tale set in the logging country of the Pacific Northwest, dosed with a mother’s love, transforms an alienated young man into an expat and ultimately an emeritus professor in Japan. Robert W. Norris crafts the stages of this extraordinary journey—punctuated with a turn as a Vietnam War resister—in a narrative style that is both graceful and seamless.
— Robert Norris
His book, the stories therein, all the backdrops, all the encounters with his mom, before he got entangled in the military (hell, we all hope those like Robert never have to get into, and those were the draft days, and, alas, he joined the US Air Force) get the reader’s juices flowing. His decision to not bail out into college and then opting to live and work in Humboldt County, he was sure then he’d be drafted and end up in Vietnam dead or dying.
The Air Force and Navy were options for him and his buddies, Troy and Shannon, signed up for the bombing brigade, the dirty Air Force. Robert made the Arcata allcounty basketball team, but the boy Norris was depressed, disinterested.
A Seedling of Truth (earth pigment, soy, thread, reclaimed linen, on gallery wrapped canvas)
Sheary Clough Suiter
So it goes, and then the book comes to me as a PDF and then a hard copy. Norris ties his own life into the life of his mother, and, yes, she and Robert have Northwest connections, which seems to be the rule of thumb for Cirque Journal: having had some time and/or connection to the Pacific Northwest. His book, The Good Lord Willing and the Creek Don’t Rise: Pentimento Memories of Mom and Me is a sentimental journey on some hardpan paths less traveled. For me to do a book review/analysis, I decided to do what I hope is not your typical dive into his book.
We’ll see if the good lord’s willin’ in this review, or if I get anything right as I immerse my own POV into Robert’s: “If the good Lord’s willing and the creek stays down I’ll be in your arms time the moon come around” (Johnny Cash).
The hook for me taking the time to read the book and communicate with Robert is that anti-war, anti-military stance he took. It’s a linchpin for me to explore Robert’s refusal to go to THAT war; and some of his narrative, the memoir, deals specifically with those times. He also went from being THAT sort of all-American, Western American, to being and thinking and dreaming as an adopted Japanese. We’re talking about THAT war (sic): During the Vietnam War more than 170,000 men were officially recognized as conscientious objectors. Thousands of other young men resisted by burning their draft cards, serving jail sentences or leaving the country.
THAT war: United States’ military involvement in the Vietnam War began in February 1961 and lasted until May 1975. Approximately 2.7 million American men and women served in Vietnam. During the war, more than 58,000 servicemen and women lost their lives. It was a clash of the Western mind with the Eastern beingness.
Family for Robert Norris is everything, and he starts spinning tales about his grandfather Frederick, born in Union County, Pennsylvania. He moved around, from Minnesota to North Dakota and then to White Salmon, WA, and that’s where Robert’s mother grew up, with the history of the Columbia River, Celilo Falls before the river was dammed up, coursing through her DNA.
Interestingly, his mother Kay talked to Norris about Kyoko Nakagawa, a Japanese-American girl who was her best friend until World War II broke out and the Nakagawa family was shipped to an internment camp.
I was in high school at that time and remember well the events of that day and the days and months that followed. There were so many things I didn’t learn about until many years later. One of my very best friends in high school was Kyoko and we spent many lunch hours together gigglin’ and talkin’ about our futures. We’d usually exchange sandwiches because mine were on homemade bread and hers were on the store bread put out by Wonder Bakeries. We thought we were being so sneaky and clever to exchange our sandwiches. How young and naive we both were. I think when I was a junior in high school, I went to school one mornin’ and couldn’t find Kyoko. I didn’t know what happened to her. I was very hurt to think she left and didn’t say goodbye.
I thought all her family were so nice. They had a home on the river and I remember I got permission to walk down there to see if she was sick and there was nobody home. Everything was gone. I found out a long time later that she and her family had been transported to an internment camp for Japanese in Idaho. I did try very hard and seriously to track her down and finally did only to find out that she died in childbirth just after her family was released from the camp after the war. I felt very sad for a long time after that.
This man, Norris, with his deep regard for the family, especially for his strong and adventuresome father, ended up deep in Japanese culture in the 1980s, becoming a language teacher, and then marrying a Japanese woman. He’s called Japan his home for more than 40 years.
He’s there now, in Japan, writing me emails, and his life is slow, he says, with old age and some medical issues from the past catching up to him now.
I can hear those metal bars slamming: The date the cell doors slammed on him was in September, 1970.
A military policeman places handcuffs around my wrist and leads me to a patrol car waiting to take me to the base prison. Jerry and Midge Kelly follow me to the patrol car.
I force a smile and say, “It could have been worse.”
Jerry shakes my hand. Midge says, “You were very brave on the stand. I was proud of you. Make sure you write us.”
I get into the patrol car. A cloud of dust rises behind the car as it lurches toward the prison. I crane my neck for a final look and see Jerry and Midge grow smaller through a brown haze until they’re tiny specks in the distance.
Ahh, that military life, short-lived, but here, in living color from the memoir:
While the majority of airmen return home on leave and report to other bases for their technical training after basic training, the others chosen to be military police (the most despicable and lowest career field in the Air Force) and I have to remain at Lackland for ten more weeks of specialized training. The hand of irony has played a cruel trick. Country bumpkin that I am, I’ve joined the Air Force thinking I’ll never have to carry a weapon, but now I’m to be trained in the art of combat and the use of deadly weapons. I know I can never kill another human being. It’s always been and still is an abstraction. Besides, I lack the courage even to use my fists to defend myself. The very thought of violence makes me sick to my stomach. I pass through the training without incident. But during those days of martial arts training; war games; kitchen labor called K.P.; stripping, cleaning, loading, firing, and handling of M-16 rifles, .38 pistols, hand grenades, bayonets, and knives; the classes on crowd dispersal, first aid, attack upon and retreat from an enemy, arrest and seizure, drugs, Communism, terrorist activities, patriotism, military police history; and the propaganda the instructors use to inculcate the soldiers into submission and obedience, there grows within my heart an inchoate attitude of rebelliousness. It lies dormant, simmering below the surface, waiting silently for the right moment to emerge from its hiding.
For a while, however, the Air Force succeeds in brainwashing me. One image sticks in my head: a drill instructor during a training session in the use of a truncheon screaming at me in front of
a gymnasium full of military police trainees. “Goddamn it, Norris! You dumb shit! You’ve got a left-handed stick! I told you to get a fucking righthanded stick. Now get your ass over to that pile and bring me a right-handed stick!”
“Yes sir,” I bark, turning redder each time I return to him with another “left-handed stick.” Finally, it dawns on me that all the sticks are the same. A wave of shame passes through me. For the rest of the military police training, the drill instructors call me Left-Handed Stick.
But the Air Force Base in Yuba City is not cloistered from the world. Early in the memoir:
During this time, I’m thinking about Vietnam and having a gut feeling that the war is wrong. Although we’re not allowed to take anything other than our guns and military equipment on The Good Lord Willing and the Creek Don’t Rise 116 the line, I smuggle a portable radio and earphones and listen to the lyrics of popular songs instead of just the melodies—songs by Bob Dylan, Crosby, Stills, and Nash, and all the others protesting the war. I’m also reading the underground newspapers that are finding their way on base and contain antiwar, antigovernment stories about the My Lai atrocity, the shooting of Ralph Bunch at the Presidio, and the hysteria running rampant on American college campuses. All the little irritating items of military brainwashing and propaganda gradually build up inside of me. Things I’ve taken for granted before now make me bristle… I miss haircuts and am constantly reprimanded for my shoddy appearance during inspections. I lose days off and am forced to undergo crowd control practice in case we’re called upon, like the National Guard, to break up a civilian demonstration. I know my sympathies would be with the demonstrators. I begin to think that if there really is an enemy, it’s the military. If the situation ever really comes up, I’ll cast aside my weapons and join the other side.
My order to fight in Southeast Asia comes through. I’m given thirty days leave before having to report first to a base in Texas for a month of intensive war training and later to a base in
northern Thailand near the Cambodian border. This happens shortly after Nixon escalates the war into Cambodia, where B-52 bombers are now dropping tons of napalm. When I leave Beale Air Base for the start of my thirty-day leave, I know I’ll never make it to Texas.
He gets out of spending five years total in prison, and after six months, when he’s out, his only constant was his “mom’s complete and unconditional love and support.” He of course was dazed and confused, and he ends up on this journey of kicking around, mixing with counterculture, blue collar work, slaving in mills, hitchhiking, then to New York and a one-way flight to Luxembourg, leaving behind the country of his birth, “the country I no longer felt a part of, venturing forth with no itinerary, just the hand of fate to guide me.”
He does the hippie trail through Europe, ending up in places he only dreamed of as a baseball-playing kid in Humboldt County, California. Paris, Spain, Greece:
The journey had given me an answer to what I’d been seeking since my court martial. The single sentence [ “I don’t feel I’m mentally or physically capable of killing another human being”] I uttered in response to my order to fight in the Vietnam War had saved four and a half years of my life and instilled in me an inchoate awareness of the power of language. The experiences in Europe had now reinforced that awareness and stimulated a need to express myself. I now had a purpose. I’d try to become a writer. I’d learn the craft. Through the writing, I’d rid myself of the confusion and derangement that clung to me so tightly.
I said this would not be your typical literary journal “book review.” Books—memoirs, especially—have a galvanizing force to them, if they are well done. They should precipitate one’s own reflection and psychological imagining, a connection to the author and those characters he or she avails themselves to.
I think Robert knows that this review of his work will not be some bullshit LA Times crap or Kirkus Reviews milquetoast. The memoir is his life, his concerted effort to get from prebirth to now, in Japan, and then to discover meaning in a journey which is always galvanized by his love of and
interest in his mother’s life, who was still in the USA while Robert made his way to Japan cobbling together parttime work as an English teacher. He ends up eventually gigging in a language school with full-time work, and then moves on to teaching for a college, then a deanship, and finally getting an advanced degree and becoming now retired, emeritus.
I sent Robert a long list of open-ended questions, and you’ll see how he received them at the end of this article. The interesting part of the book is Robert’s second trip heading to Iran, Turkey, and Afghanistan, where he eventually ended up in India. This is his so-called around the world walkabout adorned with a flowing love of learning about people while keeping an open mind, asking questions, and shutting up to hear others’ biographies.
Here, a slice from Robert’s journey, when he is about to head back to the USA:
I usually visited Rolf in the evenings. We’d prepare a dinner of rice with raisins and lamb meat, then retire to the top of the bus to smoke some hashish, watch the stars, and discuss life. One night, I told him about my journey from Paris to Afghanistan and the various adventures I’d had.
“So what have all these experiences taught you? You seem to me to be more of an observer of men than an active participant in their affairs,” Rolf said.
“I suppose you’re right about that,” I said. “The one political stand I made landed me in jail and I’ve spent a good portion of my life since then trying to rationalize what I did. This journey I’ve taken has carried me halfway around the world in search of something I can’t put a name on. I know I don’t care much for capitalism. I have an attraction for some form of socialism, but I can’t commit myself to what I don’t understand. Idealistically, it seems the best answer to man’s inability to live together peacefully, but socialism, too, has a history of violence and upheaval. It’s all pretty hard to figure out. What do you think?”
Rolf considered my question for a moment, scratched his head, then said, “Socialism, Communism, Marxism, all these ‘isms’ have no soul.
They’re connected only in terms of class struggle and a fight for equality in the production and consumption of material goods. In that sense, they’re not so different from capitalism. What about the spiritual struggle? Islamic Marxism? It’s a joke! It’s just another form of cultural imperialism that would force people to conform to a standardized way of thinking and behaving. “Democracy, individual freedom, human rights? Also a bunch of rubbish that can never be inflicted upon impoverished nations and peoples. What do uneducated peoples know about such things? They think only about where the next meal comes from. It doesn’t matter what form of government they live under. It seems to me, there’s only one reality and that’s mankind’s inability to organize itself. I think we have to accept man’s weaknesses, his greed, his stupidity. And love him for it all. No one can possibly know what the answers to life are until after we die. It’s like the preacher said, ‘All is vanity and a striving after wind.’
“You can’t save the world alone or through any ideology or ‘ism.’ That’s the only truth I know. Oh sure, you can chase after a spiritual path. Become a Christian, Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist if you must. But you won’t find any answers there, either. I’ve tried. The world’s religions are just a bunch of exclusivist groups, too. Stick with science, knowledge, the art of survival. Study languages, communicate, make life interesting for yourself, that’s what I try to do. Here, go on, have another hit off the pipe. Concentrate on the moment, look at the stars, appreciate what is here and now. If you’re meant to find any answers, they’ll come to you in due time.”
What prescient and profound advice for the beaten-down young man, Robert, a babe in the woods who was put through the ringer by military and the judicial forces. I have a feeling these words from Rolf, whether they are a bit silly to me, are deeply embedded in Robert’s consciousness.
After the second trip through Europe and Asia, he ended up working in the USA, cooking, even as a head chef on oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. All of that in condensed form is covered in the book.
While memoir is an amazing form, not a pure autobiog-
raphy, that is, more of an enlightened journey, a walkabout, a talk with the writer’s own ego and intellect and self/muse, Robert attempts to reconstruct those days, those moments, including dialogue, his thoughts, other’s thoughts. We are with him, and in many cases it feels like a journalistic recalling of events. Again, this man covers his great grandfather, the journeys there in the Norris Family, Pennsylvania Dutch, and into the New America, with all the tough life of hard work and his mother’s own emancipation from a sexist and closed world for women to venture into male territory.
This is not anti-memoir, for sure, and this search for his identity throughout his life is compelling, and this piece, this big tome is surely a Mother’s Day gift, an act of love, a tribute to his mother’s deep cut into his life. Her imprint on him and his words. This woman vaulted above the strictures of American, Lutheran, Catholic misogyny.
You as the reader will get to traverse Robert’s stepping stones, leaping from one big lily pad to the next, from which to travel with Robert on his life, the ups and downs, sweeping thoughts, focused intrigue, all the trials and tribulations, and his own life in Japan, the struggle there, language and culture crashing like an earthquake, like basalt tipping over.
He comes to love a Japanese woman, her family, a new home which is Japan, yet, Robert’s mother comes to Japan and becomes both enamored of and engaged in the language, learning, her own open hand ready to embrace a new understanding and an evolution inside her thoughts, seeing how her son is seeing through the lens of his embarkation, disembarkation and his plowing new fields for new roots.
Now, without further delay, the interview, in unadulterated words:
1. What do you miss most about your mother?
Her smile, which could light up a room, her infectious giggle, her stories, and the warmth of her hugs.
2. What do you believe have been the most transitional and emblematic changes in your character as you have become an ex-pat of Japan?
I’ve become much more accepting and patient. Too many times, especially in my early years in Japan, I would react
to things people around me did or said based on my limited and direct interpretations of Japanese into English in my head. Without having the cultural advantage of knowledge of nuances in intonation, idiomatic language, sarcasm, gestures, and even levels of politeness, there were often huge differences in what was really being conveyed and what I thought was being conveyed. I committed many cultural faux pas.
Eventually, I learned to pay attention to how native speakers interacted with one another. I tried as much as possible to copy what they said and did in certain situations. The concept of wa, or harmony, is indispensable to the functioning of Japanese society. Individualism is accepted but not necessarily encouraged. When you think about it historically, it’s easy to understand. I mean, you’ve got a country with 120 million people crammed into the space of California, and probably 70 percent of that land space is mountainous and uninhabitable. People in most cities are piled one on top of another like sardines in a can. In order to survive, they have to be able to put up with a lot. In that sense, I’m lucky that we live in a somewhat rural area with plenty of space and greenery.
When I finally got around to noticing in detail how Japanese really communicated on a daily basis in public and in private, as well as trying to accept things as they were instead of judging, I found my own life improved and I had a lot less stress, despite still not understanding 100 percent of everything that was going on.
3. What does it mean to you to be a conscientious objector?
That’s a bit of a loaded question, wouldn’t you say? If I tried to answer it with some kind of philosophical or religious tenet, I’d probably come across as a self-righteous and condescending asshole.
To me, it’s really just a matter of common sense. I’ve never felt the need to align myself with one particular group or way of thought in order to express the importance of nonviolence. I’m not against the idea of using force to protect myself or others, but just the idea of violence, whether verbal or physical, let alone killing, especially in the name of one’s government or tribe, makes me sick to my stomach.
In one form or another, I think we’re all conscientious
objectors at heart. In retrospect, most people come to see wars as senseless and insane. It’s never a matter of one side being more righteous than another. Even today, we see a tendency to point fingers at perceived perpetrators of criminal acts and claim the superiority of what our government tells us is reality and truth. In the case of what’s going on in Ukraine, I think we should do what we can to provide support to those young men refusing to kill on either side, Russian or Ukrainian.
4. What key lesson in your early years, post prison, up to way before Japan, did you gain as both personal philosophy and a way to move forward with your life?
My journeys across the U.S. and Europe in 1973 and around the world in 1977 resulted in my having less fear of the unknown and more trust in total strangers. From the moment I first stuck out my thumb while hitchhiking on the highway leading out of my hometown, I had nothing but positive experiences. This newfound faith was in a sense akin to Bob Dylan’s line in that song “Like a Rolling Stone”: “When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose.” By throwing away any worry of not having to follow a plan and basically casting my fate to the wind, I opened myself up to experiences, places, and people that would ultimately lead me to a multitude of adventures, opportunities, discoveries, friendships, and an appreciation for living life in the moment.
5. What if you had not gotten called up for overseas duty but were still in the Air Force? Would you be a much different man, thinker, and person if none of that happened to you? Explain.
I’ve never been one to dwell on “what if” situations. I’ve always tried to move on and deal with the consequences, good or bad, of whatever fork in the road I’ve chosen. At any rate, I probably wouldn’t have naively entered the Air Force if there hadn’t been a war going on or an eventual draft notice coming with my name on it. I can’t imagine myself as still being in the Air Force. As I see it now, that was simply one path I traveled early on in life that led to the next path. I’ve come to accept all the paths I’ve walked as necessary and natural in the arc of my life story.
6. Truly, Japanese culture-people-history is so much different than the history of your birth country and your mom’s place of birth and death. A few contrasts you think would be worthy of prominence in this interview?
I’ve lived in Japan for so long now that I hardly ever think
in terms of comparisons or differences between the countries. Besides, even if I tried to make comparisons, they would be outdated as the images I have in my brain about the States are mainly from the 1960s and 1970s.
I’m stuck in a time warp. What I have noticed about Japan is no different from observations I made on my journeys through other countries in the 1970s. People everywhere go about their daily lives in much the same way. They’re concerned with putting food on the table, health, family, and all the rituals of working, celebrating, grieving, showing appreciation, getting high, entertaining, and taking care of one another. If you are open to them, they’ll open their arms to you.
7. Is there anything you like about US foreign policy, US government? if not, why, and if so, expand.
I like that the U.S. is often way ahead of most other countries when it comes to helping out in times of a natural disaster. The main thing I don’t like is the U.S. having military bases in almost every country on the planet. I mean, come on! Think of how much good all the money wasted on military expenditures could be used for in battling poverty, disease, crime, pollution, all the things that will probably wipe us out as a species.
8. Being a young man when you grew up and “came of age,” well, times were so different than they are now, that is, as an 18-year-old man. Give us some insight into what you think is different now being a young man growing up compared to 1965 to 1975 in your case?
When I was an 18-year-old, we got much of our news from just three different TV news stations. My generation was probably influenced more by the music we listened to, the underground newspapers and magazines we read, and the movies we watched than anything else. I think we had time in those days to digest and discuss the issues that concerned us.
With the advent and ubiquity of today’s social media, news is aimed at and consumed by insulated tribes at a breakneck speed. Memes and 30-second Tik-Tok videos present issues that are gobbled up and replaced within minutes. It sometimes seems as if critical thinking has disappeared. Young people have to contend with too many forms of media demanding their attention 24 hours a day. No one seems to have the concentration or time necessary to read slowly and carefully and think about something that doesn’t reinforce the opinions they’ve already had formed for them.
I’d like to see someone develop an audio or video app that would read stuff like Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States and every ten pages or so take a break with a hip-hop or rap song or whatever music is popular at the moment and then summarize the contents of what was just read and ask you what you thought. That would be cool.
9. What about writing resonates with you, your spirit, your intellect that you can share with say readers who are not wired that way.
Originally, I came to writing as a means of exploring the confusion I felt about life, family, meaning, everything I didn’t understand in my youthful angst. I can’t say it led to any profound revelations, but it was cathartic. My exposure to young hippie artists, musicians, and poets during my first journey to Europe in 1973 influenced me enough to want to explore a means of expressing myself. At the time, the lives of those people seemed so fulfilling.
I think my mother’s influence played a strong role, too. As far back as I can remember, she was always playing music, writing poetry, painting scenes of nature, and expressing herself in many other ways. Her eyes always lit up when she was involved in something artistic. I guess I ended up just trying to follow her example. Writing has given me great satisfaction in life, and whenever I’m in a state of confusion, frustration, depression, or even excitement, I put pen to paper. At the end of a writing session, I always feel somewhat relieved and even interested in where some of the thoughts and descriptions came from.
Mom used to say, “Try making some lemonade out of the lemons in your life. You might find yourself feeling better.” I think the answer is as simple as that. No harm in trying, and it’s a helluva lot better than drinking yourself to death in order to forget.
10. You know where I stand politically and ethically. Japan is not my cup of tea in terms of the history of hate and mayhem with China, Korea, and in the Pacific, etc. And now, Japan is so aligned with the dirty USA, so I can’t really muster up a great theoretical love of the place. But, you do love your wife, the people who shepherded you and those you have shepherded. Riff with this. That’s it right there. The people. Again, maybe this stems from my journeys as a young man, but I found that as long
as I was open to others without any preconceived notions based on any country’s history or on the things I’d heard or read about it, people anywhere would be open to me. We should always separate the people of any country from their government’s actions or policies. We shouldn’t judge individuals without trying to communicate with them first.
I’ve shared drinks, meals, pipes of various substances, and time with people from many different countries who had reason to hate me simply because I was American and my generation or my ancestors had been responsible for the suffering of their people. Or even some of them personally. In some cases, it was the other way around.
The fact is we were able to communicate somehow without judgement. At some point, I’d learned how to be a good listener. I didn’t try to force my feelings or beliefs on them, and they didn’t try to force theirs on me. We expressed ourselves—sometimes with the help of interpreters, sometimes not—but what seemed to matter most in those moments of attempts at communication and understanding was the sincerity of the individuals involved. In my case, Japan was never an ultimate planned destination. I could’ve just as easily ended up in Greece or Spain or someplace else. As it turned out, fate intervened and I ended up here. I was lucky things turned out the way they have.
It may sound corny, but I really believe, more now than ever before, that we are all members of one family. I don’t think of myself as an American; rather, I think I’m a world citizen. If the human race can’t ever fully grasp that we’re all connected and dependent on one another, then I’m afraid we’re doomed.
Concerning that, a George Carlin quote comes to mind. In one routine about how he thought people trying to save the planet was bullshit, he said he thought that the earth didn’t give a shit about us human beings and it’d be just fine after we self destructed. He said, “The planet’ll shake us off like a bad case of fleas.” I think he’s right. In the overall scheme of things, the existence of the human race is really inconsequential.
11. What do you want people to know about your mother —key points—from and after reading the memoir? Her compassion and her capacity for total and unconditional
love. Her courage, curiosity, tenacity, sensitivity, perseverance, insatiable thirst for knowledge and understanding, and dedication to family. Her stubbornness, self-sacrifice, generosity, strength, zest for life, and the joy she gave others simply by being with them. Do you want me to continue? I can go on and on. Good Lord, how I loved that woman!
12. What gives you hope?
Children at play. Children who know they are loved. Parents in the kitchen preparing healthy meals for loved ones.
13. What presents you with the half-empty glass scenario, and if you always see it half full, then riff, discuss. Watching corporate news programs gives me a bad case of seeing the glass as half empty. Looking at great paintings, reading great literature and poetry, listening to favorite music, hearing children laugh, eating healthy and delicious foods — these things bring back an awareness of the beauty of life and a “glass half full” viewpoint. Mom used to call herself a “cock-eyed optimist.” I think I inherited that characteristic from her.
For those readers who want to get under the skin of Norris, go to his website, (http://www2.gol.com/users/ norris/) poke around, and email the fellow. It will be worth the time.
And that creek’s still rising…
This review was written and submitted before the genocide on Gaza, Palestine, and Lebanon, where more people have been murdered by USA and Israel than those two bombs dropped on Japan in 1945 did. More megatons of TNT than those two nuclear weapons.
Together We Rise Mandy Ramsey
Bonnie Harris
Did You See Any Bears?
Whenever I come home from a kayak trip in Glacier Bay, people ask me, "Did you see any bears?"
Well, yes, I did see bears. When I got dropped off on a tiny island in Giekie Inlet and saw the huge patch of salmonberries with still dripping hulls that had just been picked, and the digs every six feet above the beach for roots and grubs, I saw bears. When beaten grass trails through strawberry patches ended in piles of fresh scat full of strawberries, I saw bears. When the pushki roots were dug today and the tracks on the beach were from giants, I saw bears.
So I went elsewhere.
But on this trip, it seemed like every other time I went toward a beach for a pit-stop, I really did see bears. As I rounded the point to get out of Giekie Inlet after a brisk paddle across it against the wind and tide, I started to go ashore to pee before heading up toward Blue Mouse Cove. But just as I approached shore, I saw a big brown bear picking through the rocks. It didn't see me, and I paddled on to look for an alternate stop.
A while later the tide turned, and rather than try to fight both it and the northerly headwind at the same time, I turned back to look for a place to camp for the night. One nice beach had a creek, which is kind of against my camping rules. But it looked inviting, so I stopped to check it out. As soon as I landed and began my ritual announcing myself and asking permission of all critters to be there, a bear showed up. So I climbed back in the kayak and found a different beach, this one with a nice salmonberry patch and most of the berries still intact. Didn't look like bears had been there recently, so I got a decent night's sleep.
The next day I headed for Blue Mouse Cove, and then opted to keep going around Gilbert Peninsula rather than detour through Scidmore Cut. In preparation for the long haul around Gilbert, I wanted to go ashore on one of the islands of Hugh Miller Inlet for a pit stop and breakfast snack. I chose a likely-looking beach, but lo and behold there was a beautiful big black bear right at water line. It startled and looked around first at me, then at some crackling branch noises up above in the woods, then looked back at me uncertainly. I backed off and kept paddling, and it re-focused on the noise up above in the woods. Wonder what that was about? I kept going and found a fine gravel beach on the outer side of the island to
reconnoiter and eat something before going around the peninsula.
Two other times on this trip I surprised bears when I wanted to go ashore for a brief stop; once a brown bear at Ptarmigan Creek on the way to Reid, and once a pretty golden mama and yearling cub at a beach just before Gloomy Knob. The young bear ran up the beach and Mama looked at me accusingly, like "What are you doing here? You scared my cub!" I apologized and paddled around the corner another half mile or so before going ashore.
At Reid, Lamplugh, and Tarr Inlet I stayed vigilant for bears, but didn't even see much sign. I watched for them as I passed the Russell Island fan, because I almost always see bears there. But all I saw was lots of silty water from the big rains the last couple of nights. The silt followed me almost all the way to Composite Island.
When I got to Composite I'd been kayaking about fifteen miles, and felt it in my sore muscles. Thanks to a high tide, I wouldn’t have to carry my boat up a long beach for a change. I paddled straight for the good gravel shore near the north point and called out, "Hello all critters, human female seeking shelter for the night, I would like to camp on this beach, with your permission please!"
No boisterous oystercatchers, no noisy gulls. Just a quiet beach. I landed the boat, tied it to my paddle braced into the gravel as an anchor, and walked both directions along the beach to check for bear sign. There were obvious trails, but no recent tracks or scat. I called out as I went, "Hello critters, if there's any bears here please show yourself so I know you're here, and if you don't want me here I'll go somewhere else."
Silence, no sounds in the bushes, no brown ears appeared above the high grass.
"OK, I'm gonna unload, I'd like to spend a night here, with your permission, please allow me to stay and share your beach, thank you!"
So I hauled everything to the top of the beach, then pulled the boat up near where I thought my tent could go, and tied it to the alders. I sat down with the last swallows of tea in my thermos, and took the fig bars out of my life vest pocket. Then I heard rustle, crackle, rustle rustle in the woods behind me.
"Who's there?" I called. “Come on out and show yourself!"
Silence. I walked a ways up and peered into the alders.
"Are you a bear? A moose? I come in peace, don't want to get in your way," I said.
Rustle, crackle, swish, moving a little away.
"OK, if you're shy, but I've already unloaded so I'm
planning to stay, and if you keep going away, that's probably best. I'll only be here overnight, I'll be gone in the morning." Silence.
Could be a moose, but I didn't hear any clump-clumps. Too big for a porcupine. Oh geez, it really might be a bear. Or maybe I'm paranoid and it's just birds. Maybe it's a really big raven, playing tricks on me. I sat back down and ate my fig bar and drank the tea. No sounds from the woods.
OK, I'm gonna set up my tent now. Argh, no wind, the bugs are coming out, gotta put on a bug net or I'll go crazy trying to get my tent up. Can't see as good with this thing on, dang it. Patience, patience. The tent fly is sopping wet from last night's rain in Tarr Inlet. So I drape it over the alders to let it dry for a while in the open air, and go to stash the rest of the gear in the boat, which gets turned over. I walk my bear-proof food canisters and cook gear a ways down the beach and stash them under the alders. Then finally the tent goes up, in goes the sleeping bag, pad, water bottle, life vest minus the fig bar wrappers, dry bag with clean underwear and extra toilet paper for the morning. Still no sounds from the woods. So hopefully the critter, whatever it was, has moved on.
But I'm thinking, "Maybe I shouldn't do a full-on cooked dinner, maybe just snacks out of the bear cans, no sense tempting a curious critter."
Madras Lentils Tasty Bites are easy, I can just boil them and eat them from the pouch, don't need dishes, just a spoon. It’s quick, and if a bear shows up I can just put the pouch back in the bear can in a plastic bag. So I get the bear cans down below high tide line and start water boiling, and hmmm, those little tortillas with some cheese would be good, can just dip them in the lentils, so I do that. Pretty good dinner, actually. And no bear, so maybe I can relax now. Ah, Composite Island is pretty, the wildflowers are sweet, there's an awesome view of Rendu Inlet from here. Brush teeth, it's 9:30 or 10:00, the light is starting to fade just a little, put bear cans and cook gear back under the alders, head for the tent.
Rustle rustle, crack, snap of twigs.
"Hey, who's there?" More rustle rustle. I go up and holler into the alders, "OK bear, if you're in there, come on out and show yourself! I want to go to bed and you're making me really nervous!"
And he does. Waltzes right out between my tent and the kayak, glancing sideways at me. He's a young blond bear, a yearling or maybe two years old, but not too big, only about the size of you or me. He stands still for a moment, and I say, "Hey bear, now I know you're here, I
mean no harm, I'm sorry if I displaced you but I won't be here long, so now go away and give me some space, OK?"
He doesn't look at me, so I say a little louder, "GO AWAY, BEAR!"
Then he looks at me, kind of surprised, and starts to walk away slowly toward the beach.
"That's right," I say. "Keep on going."
He turns back toward me, and suddenly catches my scent, which is probably pretty ripe after eight days in the wilderness, and he bolts, running down the beach away from me. He turns back briefly again, and I yell, "GO!" Keep going, around the point!"
And he does. As I turn to look in my pack for my binocs to watch him running down the beach, he disappears into the rocks around the corner and is gone.
Feeling too razzled to go to bed right away, I walked down the beach in the other direction, just to see what might be there. Not far past where I'd gone checking earlier for bear sign, I found a large pile of fresh bear scat, full of grass and sedges.
Next morning I rose with the dawn to catch the outgoing tide, briefly did my stretches on top of the sleeping bag in my gratefully dry tent, then began to dismantle the tent and pack up my gear. As I rolled up the tent fly I heard rustle, rustle, crunch, snap, up in the woods.
"Oh come on, he's back already,” I thought. "Hey bear," I said out loud. "I'm leaving as soon as I can, and you can have your beach back."
I retrieved the bear cans, ate a quick snack breakfast and drank some tea from my thermos as I packed the boat, and headed out. "Thanks for sharing, and being so polite!" I hollered, as I paddled away from the beach.
Now, home in Gustavus, everyone keeps asking if I've seen the Nagoonberry Mama with her two cubs, or the young male brown bear reported to be in our neighborhood. I've seen the signs, but haven't seen the bears. And I'm fine with that. I know they're here.
The Deer, the Wolves, and the Unicorn Tree
Some naive part of me thought there would always be deer on Pleasant Island. It's just the way the island is. Was. And maybe someday will be again. Perhaps. But is that naive part of me the same one that thinks they're gone because of the wolves, and not from over-hunting by humans?
The island used to be the place local hunters went to get venison for the winter’s food. I nearly always encountered Sitka black-tailed deer when I kayaked there. Now when I camp or hike on Pleasant Island, I’m distressed
by their absence. Not only have they disappeared with the advent of wolf packs on the island, but their trails have disappeared as well, and it is now harder to travel inland through the brush. Storm-blown downed spruce trees make the problem much worse, requiring energetic clambering over slippery moss-covered logs to get uphill into the meadows. And in the natural process of forest succession from Sitka spruce to later climax species, each of those logs has now become a nursery for multitudes of baby hemlock trees.
Wolves migrated from the mainland and gradually built a population on the island since about the year 2000. Now, from all reports, they are nearly gone from the island too; will they recover from just the few remaining individuals, when there was the pack of six or eight just three years ago? The wolves are hungry; they are eating otters now. The deer have been pretty much gone for about five years. Will they come back?
I see deer tracks near Gustavus on Good River beach, or at least I did last winter and spring. It's not far to the island; I can imagine a slow migration swimming back across Icy Passage, a gradual repopulation. It seems the perfect place to start over. But are conditions the same as they were when the old population developed? The deer were there a long time, certainly since long before my lifetime. Will they need help, to come back? Did any remain at all? Are the ones who left still alive on the mainland here?
The rumor mill says moose are swimming to the island to escape predators on the mainland. A brown bear killed a moose near my house in Gustavus a couple of years ago. And a young black bear has been living over on the island for at least two years; I've seen it several times on my excursions there. Will brown bears follow the moose? It's not such a stretch. At least one has made the trip from Gustavus to the island already. I saw the longclawed tracks and broken down vegetation on the north side when I left home in rough weather and had to camp at Bull Moose Cove instead of going around to the south shore. Who knows why he made the swim or how long he’ll stay, but probably there’s enough berries and sedge grasses, and maybe moose, to keep him happy until fish are running the rivers on the mainland. There seems to be plenty to eat around Gustavus, but maybe the pressure of more people everywhere prompted him, like me, to get out of town. Still, I wonder what it will take, or how long, to reach a balance on the island again. Or was it a balance? A threshold, a tipping point? A metaphor, a microcosm…?
In 2023 I made a pilgrimage to find the oldest cedar trees on the island. Several years ago I tried to find them from verbal directions given by local biologist Greg Streveler, who had cored the trees and discovered one of them to be about a thousand years old. On that first attempt I got distracted picking giant red huckleberries, and mired in blowdowns that forced me back to the beach. This time I used GPS points and my iPhone Maps app to point me in the right direction, compass routing cross-country through dense brush and less windblown areas upward into more passable muskeg meadows and forest fringes.
Alarmingly dry, the browned muskeg sedges actually crinkled underfoot. I could have worn walking shoes instead of my rubber kayaking boots. This was a first; I’d never seen it this parched. In early June, blueberries were very sparse and green; no sign of red huckleberries. Accompanied by Steller’s jays and a downy woodpecker, I charged uphill through thick scratchy bushes, then slowed to a sweaty stroll when the brush thinned out to allow a view up ahead. I took out my compass to align it with the map’s cursor every fifteen minutes or so, to save phone battery charge and stay on track.
After a couple hours of tramping uphill, I could see a ridge of trees at the top of the island that seemed substantial enough to maybe have big cedars. I checked my compass once more and headed for the downward sloping ridge. Several hillocks closer to it, I discovered a few small cedar trees. I must be close. Checked Maps again, and somehow I’d passed the dropped pin icon on my tiny screen. Oh well, nice to be in cedars for a change, so I sat down to admire their drooping ropy foliage and scan with binocs for where I might have missed the bigger ones. Felt heartened to see a variety of sizes, as I reasoned
Beach Scene
Richard Stokes
it perhaps indicated a healthy population.
When a bluejay squawked at me and flew off northward, I followed. Took out my phone again and it said I was almost on the coordinates. Hmm…a lot of dead-looking trees along these big hummocks…and then there they were, yes, dead-looking at first but somehow nevertheless regal and bigger at their bases than most of the other healthy-looking trees. And still with a few green tufts and empty sticks hanging off their rough-ridged spires. One of the largest had divided its trunk into the shape of a giant tuning fork, only one side still green. One smaller tree had a dead white branch poking up diagonally from its healthy green crown, in curious resemblance to a narwhal, or perhaps a unicorn horn.
The grove skirted deeper forest at the edge of the muskeg, away from the tangles of small cedars growing with spruce and mountain hemlock. Do the smaller trees seek the shelter of companion species? Can yellow cedars handle the competition, or will they die out as the forest progresses? The old ones are outliers, remnants of ice refugia at the northern end of their range, spaced wider apart, out in the open where their roots are vulnerable. A hemlock growing anomalously close with the unicorn cedar, only half its size but less than two feet away, appeared poised to take over should the old cedars die.
My arms around the oldest cedar’s trunk only reached half way ‘round. I rested my forehead against it and breathed its scent; noticed deep scars near bases of the two biggest trees, likely cultural markings indicating use of their bark by Huna Tlingit people hundreds of years ago. Bark grew in a thick rolled curve around the slash where it was once cut and peeled back to remove for use, perhaps for its strength and preservative properties in weaving blankets with mountain goat hair. Leaning my back against the roughness and gazing up at blue sky framed by ancient crags of branches, I wondered at the resilience shaped by a thousand winters of wind and snow, rain and frost and bitter cold; yet still green, still reaching, still alive.
I moved away into the forest of smaller trees to find a place to sit and eat my lunch, then returned to leave an offering of corn muffin crumbs for the bluejays. I placed them carefully on the moss, in the shelter of the largest trunk.
Although only a few miles away, these yellow cedar trees are several centuries older than the mainland river outwash where Gustavus was built. The river plain has only been out from under sea water for about 200 years, as the land rises in response to uplift from glacial retreat
and plate tectonics. In contrast, Pleasant Island has more ancient volcanic origins, and remained uncovered during the Little Ice Age. Surviving cedars at the top of the island were there centuries before the ice pushed the Tlingits out of Glacier Bay.
A friend muses that perhaps the absence of deer will allow the island’s cedar groves to produce new seedlings, as deer apparently feed on cedar shoots. I did not see any seedlings near the grove of old cedars. I wonder how often a species that can live a thousand years troubles to reproduce itself. But the bigger issue is whether these trees can survive present and future climate changes. Alaskan cedars are suffering precipitous region-wide dieoff due to warming temperatures and lack of snowpack to cover their roots in winter. And forest ecologists consider them a “canary” species for the health of forests as a whole. The questions fueling science research have so far failed to solve mysteries about why they grow where they do, and whether they are resilient enough to migrate to other places when their habitat is fatally compromised. We simply do not know.
Royal Kiehl
There Was A Farm
— recollections from a missing photograph
Ninety-eight acres were once a hundred until the railroad cut a wedge through the corner. On the small cutout wedge ran a little road where many cars parked in the evenings. I am told that many condoms were to be found there but I never found any, but I was really not sure what I was looking for back then, or how they were purposed. I also looked for arrowheads but never found any of those either. The steel rails of the B&O Railroad provided opportunities for a boy to toy with disaster by placing white ballast stones, sometimes two or three in a little row, on the tracks and seeing what would happen when the massive locomotives passed over. I would then leave the scene so as not to be identifiable as the culprit who had caused untold destruction and loss of life by derailing the steaming monsters that roared through our property. Anxiety visited me on those nights, fearing that the railroad police would knock on the door to our house and that my parents would have to let them take me away. On the following mornings, I would awaken to find the mass of overturned locomotives and freight cars piled up in front of my home completely cleaned up and the telltale
Jan Jung
gouges in my front yard completely smoothed over, as if nothing terrible had happened the night before.
Marking the far border of the farm was Silver Creek, properly known as “Silvercrik” by those who knew their way around. This little streamlet, barely a yard wide most of the time, was always interesting because of its surface reflecting the silver color of the sky and because of the spiders scooting about on top of the water and never sinking. The mystery of the non-sinking spiders always fascinated me. There were also little creatures that would spin happily under the surface. If I was lucky, there were darting fishlets. Silvercrik was no good for tiny boat sailings because the water was too shallow, and the boats would always run aground within a few inches after launching.
I wasn’t allowed to go there alone. Later, when I was old enough to make the sojourn by myself, I mostly remember the boredom and the loneliness, not the water spiders so much.
At the other end of the creek was a gully, accessed from a bordering road along the side of the farm. In that gully was a silver bus, stained with khaki-colored moss, with vertical streaks of dirt flowing down the sides. Behind the bus was an entrance to one of the old coal mines, long since collapsed. In and around the bus and the mine entrance, was Pete, the hermit. Dark, scary, maybe a deceased coal miner crushed in the collapse, he spoke and was unfriendly. He was someone you would want to stay away from, and from his bus too, and from the mines.
The mines burrowed under the farm and would occasionally yield to the weight of the fields above and cave in, swallowing an unsuspecting tractor and its driver. The mines ate many men over the years and never gave up their bones to those who missed them. Who knew what dwelled under that peaceful surface of wheat fields and beech forests, the hayfields and the orchards?
At the rear of the farm was a forest of tall beech trees, smooth barked, some bearing large hearts with dates and initials. This was my favorite place on the land. The soil underneath bore May apples, which smelled wonderful in the spring and had a lovely-but-exotic taste in the summer. Bittersweet grew there, especially along fencerows, and Osage oranges, and ground cherries, and elderberries. What bounty was offered from the fence rows! But the beech trees were the most wonderful with their paths and trails cut through, allowing access to the fields beyond. The forest was safe, and I could go there by myself. I could find the oldest tree in the forest and the youngest. Sometimes, the cows would see me there and slowly wander in, curious to see what I was doing. It was then that I discovered the beauty of a cow’s eyes – large, clear, with such delicate eyelashes, so gentle, so lovely to behold.
If you picture the farm as a great square, it rose at the back with the beech forest at the top and sloped gently downhill toward a road. In the middle was a barn with two silos, one made of concrete blocks, the other of wood. There was a large chicken coop, a pig pen, a milk house, and a separate garage with a second story on top you could only access with a ladder through a hole in the ceiling. There was also a house to live in. A dog house was added later. Next to the house was a cistern that saved water from the roof. There was a weeping birch tree that one must never climb on, and a great persimmon tree, rich with puckery orange fruit that never ripened. In the basement of the house
was a great furnace into which people shoveled Blue coal which my mother thought was of the highest quality. The greatest of all these structures was the barn, made of huge oak beams, hand hewn and pegged together without nails or bolts, wide enough you could climb up and lie down on them. The mighty barn was happiest filled with farm equipment out of the weather, hay, house high, and bins of grain, and on its lowest level, cows, many cows in orderly lines patiently waiting.
The final portion of the photograph to be described is the area between the buildings and the main road in front. A long, straight lane connected the two. This served as the farm’s lifeline to the outer world, allowing civilization in and boys out in order to go to school. The lane was lined with a variety of trees pointing the way when snow was too deep in the old days. Two mulberries, some elms, and a number of black locusts kept cold boys on the path to meet the school bus. In the summer, beautiful orange-red hawk weed flowers bloomed along the way and kept the school buses away.
If a boy turned left at the end of the driveway, he would eventually cross the creek. If he turned to the right, he would quickly come to the crossing where he had caused so many catastrophic train derailments and where his mother’s car was run over by the diesel locomotive, perhaps in retaliation.
This is the picture of a farm. It is important to keep it somewhere where it will not get lost, since the farm is gone now. The beech forest is gone. The hill on which the trees lived is gone. The barn and its massive wooden beams are gone. No other wooden buildings reside on this land. Mulberries and persimmon trees, beeches, May apples, bittersweet and the intoxicating scent of honey locust blossoms are no more. Cows, with their lovely eyes no longer set hoof on the land. Pete the hermit – long gone. The silver creek? – probably in a culvert somewhere but no longer fascinating to boys. Only this photo remains.
After the photo was taken, a transformation occurred. The land which was once a farm is now a substation for the Ohio Edison Company, flattened and covered with high-voltage electric lines spreading throughout a large portion of the state, making it possible to enjoy all the benefits electricity provides us. The old wooden structures, beams, cribs, pens, the house with its gigantic furnace and the unused portion of its last load of Blue
coal, even the dog house, replaced by huge transformers and other metal things of mysterious function. There is no value judgement implied in presenting this old picture. One thing of value exchanged for another thing of value. It is just my old photograph.
A Day In Seattle, Washington
The building at 800 Maynard Avenue South is wedged onto an irregular rhomboid of land barricaded from the rest of the world by the railroad yards, a freeway interchange and a one-way street system designed by Donald Duck.
That part of town is dirty, a blanket of dust, grit and generic crud that settles on everything and sticks. Sidewalk-level windows look like the mud flaps on a semi after a three time zone haul in February.
Who knows when the building was erected, if erected is the word. More likely it was poured, for it was four stories of solid, bare concrete, a stellar exemplar of the Stalingrad school of architecture.
The front entrance was locked. I walked around to the back, staying off the sidewalk because it was crawling, figuratively and literally, with moldering food wrappers, used condoms, discarded needles and some minifauna I couldn’t quite identify. A skeleton-like man with furtive, darting eyes and a twisted, scoliotic spine was pawing through the needles. He wore no gloves.
There was no door in back, only a shallow gully filled with more schmutz. I returned to the front, nodded to
Janet Klein Parked Permanently
Doug Margeson
Richard III’s reincarnation and eventually found a small door on the south side. It was not locked.
The stairwell was an unpainted concrete shaft with a single, 25-watt bulb attempting to illuminate the landing of each floor. The smell of wet concrete and old dust permeated the air and settled on one’s tongue. If the shaft and stairs had ever been swept, no one could remember when. Why did I bother to shine my shoes this morning?
As I climbed the stairs, my footsteps bonged and echoed eerily in the hollow cavern. I wondered if this is what it was like to explore Hitler’s bunker the day after the Fuhrer shuffled off this mortal coil.
At the second landing, I decided I had reached the third floor. After much grunting and wrestling, I managed to pry open the dented, rust-patched door to see what I could see.
What I saw should have been a normal hallway in a normal office building. But it was not normal. There were no people. The offices were empty. The identifying signs next to the doors had been ripped off, flaying the wallboard in big, ragged scabs. The interiors were abandoned, save an occasional tipped-over chair or a desk with one leg missing. In many, ceiling tiles had fallen off and torn insulation hung down in long, grimy stalactites. I rounded a corner. The hallway before me was very dark, a stygian cave funneling backward into a funereal abyss. Then, as my eyes got accustomed of the gloom, I saw light; dim, straw-colored and barely visible, glowing feebly from a murky cranny.
What in the world was I doing in a place like this?
I will explain. But first, the premise of this little missal. Some say a city is a sentient, living entity, an amalgam of seemingly random things, phenomena and activities that collectively form a functioning whole unique to itself.
There is some validity to the idea, I think. If you’ve ever looked out at a city from a high hill or tall building, it certainly seems to pulse with the consciousness of a living thing; sometimes a great, lusty, street brawl of a thing; sometimes a quiet contemplative muse as people, home for the night, retire to their solitude. But the life of city continues to flow through and from them, quiet and unnoticed, perhaps, but always there.
Within the body of the city, individual courses of action are at play, too, living out their own singular pockets of reality, also unique to themselves. Sometimes, if you are lucky, you might find yourself in one and maybe, if you are
paying attention, you will sense how it is part of a greater, living whole.
I wrote a book, a novel actually; 151,476 words of what I hoped was timeless—or at least competent—prose. After many rejection letters, it was picked up by a publisher. Because it was a small publisher and because I was a firsttime author, much of the local publicity was left to me.
It actually went reasonably well. Some Northwest bookstores scheduled read-and-signs, I had two radio interviews and the book received favorable reviews on the internet and in a couple of area newspapers.
It did not get reviewed by any of the big papers or big magazines. But I didn’t worry about it. Maybe it just needed to get some traction.
Then Covid hit. Bookstores cancelled—not postponed, cancelled—the read-and-signs and many shut their doors indefinitely. So much for my marketing campaign.
The book still sold a copy here and there and still does, but after a while, I moved on and started work on another book.
Then, fate smiled upon me.
The book takes place at Seattle Pacific University, a small school with an excellent academic reputation. Its reputation in other areas is, well, something that can take getting used to. A church-supported school, SPU takes great pride in its image as an unblemished bulwark of piety and rectitude, a sanctuary where students glide beatifically around campus on currents of ethereal purity.
The reality is, of course, quite different. The book’s story takes place in 1964-65. In those days, the school forbade students from smoking, drinking, dancing and playing cards. Daily chapel attendance was mandatory. There were other strictures. A typical example: Women students were required to wear skirts, not pants, on campus — unless they were on their way to play tennis or some such thing. And then, they were encouraged to be as inconspicuous as possible, whatever that meant. And so it went; a neverending galaxy of priggery.
From the perspective of the professionally religious, it all sounded just peachy. And some students, about 20 percent or so, embraced, or at least respected, the rules. The rest, the 80 percent majority, ignored them. They simply were careful not to smoke, drink, dance or play cards on campus, or to engage in such things in some certifiably dumbshit way like staggering back to the dorm after a Saturday night drunk and heaving up one’s socks in the hallway.
The majority also heartily disliked the school’s mandatory daily chapel. Some devised elaborate ways to skip it. Bribing the roll takers was one such. Others, many, in fact, taught themselves how to sleep through all the harangues and pulpit poundings. It’s one of those unintended benefits of a college education.
In short, the students did what they had to do to be reasoning, independent human beings, not the proper little churchy automatons of the administration’s wet dreams.
Many of SPU’s consecrated strictures are still in place, in one form or another, to this very day and, in a nod to hallowed tradition, students are still coming up with creative ways to dodge them.
Interestingly, perhaps, for most of its history, the school avoided codified rules about sex, probably because even the most sanctimonious of its diaconate knew that such rules were impossible to enforce. But the idea that there was a private behavior they couldn’t control stuck in their collective craw.
Then, in the spring of 2022, an opportunity presented itself. Someone on the board of regents read that gay people were marrying each other and, in the state of Washington, such unions were legally recognized.
Clearly the nation, the world, the very fabric of the universe itself was in dire peril. How gay marriage imperiled anything was never made clear or even pondered. It dared to exist. A line had been drawn in the sand. So the board passed a rule that faculty, staff and students could only be married to members of the opposite sex. It already was assumed that no one had sex outside of marriage. Don’t laugh. They really did believe that.
In keeping with hallowed tradition, the gay people on campus ignored the rule, but were more careful than before to keep their private lives private. Life at the university continued to roll along just fine in its contradictory but efficiently functioning way.
Then a faculty member let it slip he and his husband had lived a married gay life together for quite a while. They bothered no one. They promoted nothing. He was promptly fired.
To the administration’s horror, more than 300 students promptly showed up at the plaza under the president’s office window and staged a very loud protest rally. They also presented petitions of opposition signed by hundreds of students and no small number of faculty members. Their premise: The unthinkable blasphemy that a person’s sex life was nobody else’s damned business.
Meanwhile, the faculty senate passed a resolution of no confidence in the school’s board of regents, the first time such a thing ever happened at SPU.
The administration’s worst nightmare became even worse still when students staged a sit-in in the hall outside the president’s office. It lasted 24 hours a day for the next six months.
The local press, heathen fiends that they are, loved it.
That’s where I came in. My book, which I wrote before the whole mess began, examined some of SPU’s oddities from the perspective of undergraduates who had to endure them, sometimes with ill-starred results. Like a shark tasting a drop of blood in the ocean, I perceived, in SPU’s gay marriage war, an opportunity. Maybe I could renew some interest in the book from critics at Seattle’s most influential newspapers, the Seattle Times and The Stranger. I had nothing to lose, so I made up publicity packets and set out to deliver them.
Which brings me back to my original premise: that within cities exist currents of reality unique to themselves and which, if you are lucky and paying attention, you just might experience.
That doesn’t mean it will be easy. I should have been warned. The Stranger’s web site listed no telephone number and the street address was a P.O. box in very fine print at the bottom margin of the page. Clearly, these folks did not want to be visited.
I researched some more and eventually came up with two addresses. The first was at 1535 11th Avenue at the south end of the Broadway neighborhood. A delightful place, the Broadway neighborhood; two square miles of modest houses, apartments and shops built in times when architectural craftsmanship and human scale cityscapes were prized. Fifteen thirty five Eleventh Avenue was typical; a particularly graceful 1920s brick and terra cotta affair with open, airy shops on the first floor and offices on the other two. When I arrived, it was encased in scaffolding. Dust-coated dumpsters and piles of splints and splinters and plaster fragments clogged the sidewalk. Clearly it was being remodeled and clearly the offices and shops were empty.
That left me with The Stanger’s second address, Third Floor, 800 Maynard Avenue South, a place I’d never been. But I knew roughly where it was and I knew, roughly, how to get there. Note the word roughly, because the streets of Seattle were, just then, undergoing a metamorphosis — from archaic and confusing into something resembling a deranged obstacle course.
David Goodrum
A bit of history may help explain: When it was first platted, Seattle’s west-to-east streets ran perpendicular to the shoreline of Elliott Bay. The bay is curved, so the streets ran out like spokes of a wheel. After a while, some bright-eyed individual realized that would make for a very messy city, so at about Ninth Avenue, which ran north and south, the grid was changed so the west-to-east streets ran straight west–to-east. But the old wheel spokes layout was left as it was. The two grids’ convergences, some at some very odd angles, combined with a gulch used for the railroad yards, numerous steep hills and gullies and two major freeways hemorrhaging in the middle of it all, make the downtown street system seem the product of a techie who fell asleep and hit the keyboard with his forehead.
To complete the horror, the streets on my route were being repaved, or ditched or widened or otherwise gouged into oblivion. Why was not explained. It never is in Seattle. Some say the concrete lobby, not the City Council, actually controls the town. There is ample evidence to suggest it. Anyway, the result was a minefield-like slalom of barriers arranged to form temporary new lanes. Well, in theory at least.
I girded my loins and launched into it; gas and brakes, gas and brakes, screech and skid and jolt to a stop. I careened around delivery trucks serenely parked in the middle of the street and tried not to run down the pedestrians and deliverymen meandering dreamily across the road in blissful ignorance of moving vehicles
I didn’t hit anything or run down anybody important, I think, and turned onto Broadway, wormed my way around more trucks parked in the middle of the street and promptly found myself stopped in traffic and straddling some railroad tracks. They were shiny from recent use. Not comforting. Deep breaths, deep breaths.
An opening! I darted into it and skidded onto Madison Street, the main route to the bowels of downtown Seattle.
That’s when the slalom began. The roadway was dug up like something out of the Western Front in 1917. It was flanked by sawhorses, tape or whatever else the diggers could find to squeeze us into a single lane just barely wide enough for two cars to pass in opposite directions; a game of chicken, all for the civic good.
Suddenly, the lane swerved. Now the other half of the road was dug up. Big plastic waist-high road barriers attached end to end formed a long, orange channel glowing like psychedelic neon in the afternoon sun. There’s a reason Jimi Hendrix is Seattle’s patron saint. The day-glo channel widened and narrowed like peristalsis as it plunged down Seattle’s roller coaster-like hills; trippy, man — until you remembered you were navigating it into a tangled skein of one-way streets, one of which should take you south to Maynard Avenue.
Which streets went which way? There were signs pointing one way, but I couldn’t make them out until I was into the intersections. I decided to be bold; hard left onto Third Avenue and hit the gas. It seemed like a good idea— until the street ran headlong into a large sign stating DO NOT ENTER, backed up by a phalanx of dark green buses, their monolithic front grills glowering like Merlin, Deacon and Rosie after a bad call on a third down from the twenty. I was on one of Seattle’s notorious transit-only streets.
Quick turn across two lanes of traffic—no one else in them at the moment, fortunately—down Jefferson Street, one block to Second Avenue, another turn and I was headed south toward 800 Maynard. No construction on Second, smooth sailing all the way. But it was a brief respite, for it emptied into a ganglia of mismatched streets and avenues and places and courts south of Yesler Way; into traffic resembling a swarm of bees, gritty and moiling, so thick you’re afraid to inhale for fear of gagging on urban chaff.
Get distracted and you’ll end up in the parking lot at Lumen Field and good luck getting out. Miss the bridge over the railyards—at Jackson Street, if you know it’s there—and you’ll end up stuck on either Dearborn Way or Seattle Avenue (which becomes Airport Way South
Unknown Combination
in a couple of blocks, who knows why they changed the name) then god help you because nobody else will as you are whisked away for a mile or two; either south into the sawdust-filled mudflats that constitute the city’s main industrial area, or east, smack into the west bluff of 350 feet -- high Beacon Hill.
Either way, you won’t be able to turn around for a good long time, and even then you’re taking your life in your hands because there are no turn lanes or traffic lights to speak of. And don’t slow down. The rest of the traffic will slow down for you the way a school of piranhas slows down for a wayward tapir.
I know because that’s what happened to me: stuck eastbound on Dearborn wondering how and if I would find a way back. A skinny brown man dressed in rags was dancing on the traffic island between the east- and west-bound lanes; no boom box or ear buds, jerking and lurching to rhythms only he could hear, perhaps the tumultuous resonance of the labyrinth that surrounded us. At that cheery piece of cityscape he didn’t seem the least bit out of place.
I finally got turned around and reached the neighborhood of 800 Maynard Avenue South. The neighborhood, ah, the neighborhood. The pall of failure and second best hangs over it in resignation. Always has and always will. Built quick, cheap and ugly, cracked concrete and crumbling asphalt, peeling paint, bent chain link fences, fading signs for fly-by-nights long since gone, although few notice. Here the internal combustion engine rules and automobile and the truck—the bigger and uglier the better—are its apex predators. They roar and clatter and clank and crash and belch smoke and smog and assorted hybrid toxins and no one cares. Too busy going somewhere else.
Welcome to my beloved home town, the Emerald City, the parts they don’t tell you about in the chamber of commerce brochures.
Then, to go back to how this story began, I found 800 Maynard Avenue South, climbed to its third floor and saw a dim light glowing feebly in a dark hall.
The light turned out to be from a small graphic design company, the creation of art majors trying to make their mark in the world and starting low. Down the hall was the door to The Stranger. The paper’s office had desks and partitions and such, but no people. Its only light was from windows at the far end. There was no mail slot.
I went back to the graphic design company. Its door was locked. I knocked. I knocked again. And again.
Eventually, a young woman with thick glasses and a frightened expression appeared. She opened the door a crack and eyed me up and down carefully. Her lower lip quivered with dread.
I tried not to look too bestial as I introduced myself, explained that I had a package for The Stranger and asked if she knew when they would be in.
“Oh, they come and they go,” she said, trying to steady her nerves. “I have no idea what their hours are. We take packages for them every now and then and they drop by sometimes to pick them up. I can take yours, if you like.”
I did not like; too many references to sometimes, no idea, every now and then and other vagaries. I hemmed and hawed trying to figure out what to do. The young woman looked on timorously. Then she said, “Oh, look. There’s someone coming out the door now.”
Indeed there was; someone pushing a bicycle, headed for the elevator three steps across the hall. I was a dozen steps away. I just might make it…
“Stranger person, wait!” I cried.
He was in the elevator, wrestling with his bike when I got there.
“Dan Savage!” I exclaimed.
And indeed it was, Seattle’s resident proponent of good sex and good sense, whose advice column, “Hey, Faggot” was arguably the most read journalism in town, the unapologetic cultural heretic whose call-in radio show Savage Love provided fodder for countless fulminations from the pulpit; the first guy in town to call a blow job a blow job in a local newspaper and inventor of the term “pegging” to describe, uh, well, intimate relations involving an object you weren’t born with. I had done some stories about Dan back in my reporting days. I liked him very much.
He didn’t remember me.
“I wouldn’t expect you to,” I said. “I wrote a book. I’m trying to get it on the editor’s desk. Can you help me out? I will say nice things about you to everyone I know.”
I gave him my best sincere smile, but I’m bad at that sort of thing. He laughed.
“All right, all right, but we’ll have to make it fast. I’ve got an appointment to get to.”
He went to the trouble of propping open the elevator door with his bike, unlocking the office and taking my packet back to the editor’s cubicle. I thanked him. And I meant it.
On the way down the elevator, I asked how things
were going for him in the oh-so-politically correct world of Seattle, Washington circa 2023.
“Well, I’ve certainly had to adjust my approach,” he said with a resigned sigh. I nodded sympathetically. And I was sympathetic. Was the world of plainspoken people like Dan Savage evaporating into the sunset of ruthlessly enforced gentility? It certainly seemed like it.
We reached the front door. The needles ghoul was gone. Dan got on his bike.
“Thanks again,” I said. “And good luck.” I meant that, too.
Then he was off, with a smile and a wave, fading into the churning maw of enforced conformity which was the city that once welcomed him.
On the road again, this time headed north on Fourth Avenue, past the littered, sludge-coated trench of the railyards, through the draculan grotto under the Yesler Street bridge and then, with jarring transilience, straight into Seattle’s main financial, retail and corporate heart.
Here, appearances do count, starting with the Rainier Club, the city’s most exclusive exercise in exclusivity; five stories of tasteful Tudor revival surrounded by gardens and lawns on the priciest square footage in five hundred miles; discrete, if not inconspicuous, right down to the uniformed, six-foot-six cyclops standing guard at the front door to remind the rest of the world that only a certain kind of people are allowed here and you aren’t them.
On past the new downtown public library, a huge, multi-faceted glass polyhedron refracting the afternoon sun like a broken disco ball; dazzling on the outside, nearly impossible to navigate in the inside. No matter. Appearances, appearances.
The canyon of glass and stainless steel continued, occasionally punctuated by the lovingly sculpted terra cotta buildings of days gone by, although fewer of them all the time, and sometimes by past memories; the site of the Blue Mouse theater between Union and University Streets. Once you took the prettiest girl you ever knew there, to see the premier of Bonnie and Clyde. The line stretched around the corner on a cold night but once inside, it was worth it, for you experienced a kind of art you had never seen before, and you felt the muse of it and understood it on a level of intuition you had never known before.
Such moments happen in their own time and space. Their meaning is the experience of being there and feeling it gives you. And it must be a very important meaning indeed because you are still affected by the sense of it all
these years later.
Now the theater is gone and the girl is gone and all that is left is a memory that resonates only with you. And you are old and soon that will be gone too. And it will be as if it never happened.
Keep going, keep going. North of Stewart Street, the buildings on Fourth get smaller and, here and there, trees line the roadway, the afternoon sunlight wending through their leaves, creating gentle saffron ripples on the sidewalks; good taste, urban life the way it should be. And maybe it will continue to be, for a while at least.
Fourth promptly ends at Denny Street, another one of those places where Seattle’s grid street system collides with the wheel spokes design of early days.
East onto Denny, careening down another roller coaster hill and don’t turn off it or you will get tangled in the side streets like a bug in a mosquito net and fragments of your exoskeleton will be found weeks later in a weedy vacant lot.
Overseeing it all, in Denny Park, is a small statue of granite-visaged Reverend Mark Matthews, Seattle’s resident enemy of sin, which he defined as anything that involved fun and didn’t pay tithes. Nowadays, the statue looks out onto, well, not much. The crazy street maze strands businesses, effectively discouraging building anything substantial. Poor Mark, consigned forever to the one thing he feared most: Obscurity.
From there, you continue east, clawing your way in low gear and pedal to the metal up one of the most precipitous hills in a city characterized by Himalayan geography. At the top is the Seattle Times. No place to park, save a small gap nearby on an obscure side street sloping steeply to the north.
The Times building is yet another paragon of poured concrete sensibilities, this one six, blank megalithic stories tall. The big glass front door was locked. It was only 4 p.m.
I waited. After a while, three men came out. I snuck in before the door closed behind them. According to the guide posted next to the elevator, the newsroom was on the sixth floor. Up I went. When I got there, the elevator door would not open. Back down to the lobby, which I assumed is on the first floor. It was not. The first floor is the basement.
Ah, again Seattle and its punch-drunk topography. Turns out the Times building is built on a cliff. The first three floors hang down the side of the cliff like the shirttail of a sloppy dresser. So the main entrance, at the top of
the cliff, I guess, is actually on the third floor. Or so I found out when I got to the lobby and a guy leaving for home explained it to me, along with the fact you can’t get off the elevator on the sixth floor unless you have a key card.
I looked over to the reception desk. It was empty. The entire foyer was empty, yet another a bleak concrete cavern – a coat of paint and some framed photographs to dress it up a little, but a concrete cavern nonetheless.
I showed my package to the guy, who turned out to be a very nice man indeed.
“There must be some place I can leave this so it will get to the newsroom.” I tried not to sound whiney. Results were mixed.
“Oh, why didn’t you say so,” the nice man said. “I run the reception desk. Here, give it to me. I’ll put it in the box for the newsroom. They’ll get it tomorrow morning.”
It was the second act of selfless kindness done to me that day, a record by two. I gave my head a quick shake to make sure I wasn’t imagining it. When I looked around again, the nice man was gone. Maybe I had imagined him. I’ll never know.
And with that, I was done.
Back I went to my beloved 1991 Toyota. For thirty three years it had dutifully taken me everywhere I wanted to go and never complained and only broke down once. It was parked in another of Seattle’s forgotten places. Construction machines, gougers and pounders and scrapers, roared and crashed in the lot next to it, stirring up the rich mulch of centuries, smelling of the wood and trees and creatures long gone and long forgotten, but, at this brief moment, still here with the deep, rich scent of the eternal earth.
I found myself walking on a parking strip; dried yellow grass, humble and forgotten, planted when there was a house here, oh so many years ago; the last vestige of a smaller, plainer time before the invasion of the concrete boxes that were patiently, inexorably choking the soul from my city. Somehow, the grass had survived. It was the same as the grass in the vacant lots of my childhood, where on hot summer days I dug the heels of my Keds into it and thought the world was free and open and stretched into infinity.
In the distance, framed by the neighborhood’s canyon of steel and concrete, a sliver of Lake Union showed; a glowing cobalt shard, alone and proud. The grinding conveyer belt of cars on Mercer Street crisscrossed in front of it without letup, but the lake was still there as it always
had been. Maybe it always would be. I could hope.
I took a deep breath and lifted my face and let the sun saturate me with the Van Gogh yellow of a northern summer. It baked its heat into me and told me, as only it can, that I was alive and that this world is a wondrous, unpredictable place, full of adventure as it, not you, defines adventure.
I threw my head back and laughed, a loud laugh that disappeared into the surrounding din, but that pulsed and echoed within me. I was happy, a deep, satisfying happiness I had not felt for a long time.
I said, “Thank you, God. Thank you for this day.”
I want to live forever.
Daniel Penner Cline
Lean of Potential
Marilyn Stablein
Reflections on Judith Roche: A Northwest Legacy
Labor Day weekend never passes without memories of the humongous Seattle Bumbershoot Arts and Music Festival as I knew it in the 1980s. The huge multi-venue arts festival filled the Seattle Center grounds originally built to house the World’s Fair in 1962. Most of the venues were booked with international acts that weekend including the Intiman theater, Opera House, and Flag Pavillion where national dance troupes, rock bands, folk music, national theater and literary headliners appeared. Something for everyone: international food vendors, children’s activities, craft booths, a juried northwest art exhibition.
Decades ago I directed the Literary Arts Program which in itself was huge. National writers and performers, regional poets, a legendary Small Press Book Fair, writers’ panels, readings, and installations filled the program. Four full days. By full I mean a day’s work and after that an afterparty that didn’t end until the wee hours of the following day. Grab a few winks, a cup or two of Joe and it’s time to welcome participants, vendors, volunteers and audiences to another full day’s dynamic program.
All through the 1970s and 1980s Seattle presenters, curators, and magazine editors welcomed a diverse range of multicultural voices. Indigenous, Hispanic, Black, Asian, Pacific Rim and women’s voices enthralled audiences with their unique perspectives and literary voices. The national literary headliners in 1979 included Shawn Wong, Al Young, Marge Piercy and Philip Levine. Bio regional writer events featured Skagit Voices Paul Hanson, Tom Davis and Clifford Burke. A performance group, The Buddha Bandits Down Highway 99 featured writers Garrett Karoru Hongo and Alan Chong accompanied by Marcus Tsutakawa bass, Bob Antolion sax and Vic Kubo percussion. Over the years the festival expanded to keep apace of the burgeoning regional, national and international literary scenes.
My friendship with Judith Roche began in 1978 when the jurors of the Preliminary Performance Gala Competition selected her as one of the readers to perform at the Labor Day weekend Bumbershoot Festival that year.
Her bio at the time read: “Judith is from Detroit, America’s steely heartland, where her family made cars and organized unions. With her heart firmly rooted in between Leschi where she lived and Decatur Island, she has been raising children, taught English, been a social
worker, in construction and a commercial fisher in Alaska.”
Her diverse background fueled poems that captured her strong voice tempered by a growing eco-awareness, spirited visions, warmth and compassion. She bravely left small children for two or three months at a time to work as a riveter on the Alaska pipeline. Her gamble paid off; union wages paid well and she was soon able to purchase a home in the Leschi district of Seattle.
She was serious about writing, publishing and teaching poetry. She mentioned a book in progress, Getting Used to the Noise about women in heavy construction. She published two of my early poems in The Seattle Voice where she was the poetry editor.
We became good friends and shared a warm friendship for decades. She signed her last book to me, “Sister, Poet, Friend.”
Perusing my eclectic literary archive files recently, I’m charmed to discover a red Christmas greeting she sent, decorated with a woodcut of an angel in downward flight to illustrate “The Angels”—one of my favorite poems she wrote.
The Angels are not like the Saints. They do not discriminate but come to everyone. Their eyes burn green fire and their kisses are icy, …They work within great wheels and circles, turning light into dark and back again …hover like vast hummingbirds when we require attention…
The One Reel folks, the producers of the Bumbershoot Festival, came from artistic backgrounds. Louise DeLenge—Judith fondly referred to her as the Contessa of One Reel—together with a stage crew first performed on a portable stage built onto the back of a colorful, festive truck. Bright letters emblazoned One Reel Vaudeville Show on the side. When I came on board in 1978, a newbie to the scene after a move from NYC the year before, the groundwork for selecting a dynamite group of local poets and writers for the Festival lineup was already in place.
Volunteer Charlie Burks coordinated the first Bumbershoot Writers in Performance competition. Later Red Sky Poetry Theatre stepped in to co-produce the competition.
From the beginning of our friendship Judith exhibited strength and directness in her work, but after a long day, she was always ready to set work aside and celebrate in style when it was time to party. She was a great hostess. Local, regional and national literati mingled on her beautiful, forested wood deck overlooking Lake Washington. Spirited conversations were lively.
As a founding board member of Red Sky Poetry Theatre, Judith also firmly believed in supporting performance art opportunities. She hosted board meetings at her home. Sky Poetry Theatre evolved from Dogtown Poetry Theatre (1975) which was inspired by the reader’s theatres of the 60s and beat poetry performances. Think Allen Ginsberg with his harmonium.
“Poetry Theatre,” Don Wilsun, Red Sky’s conga drum percussionist/founder rightly claimed, “is more assertive, not nebulous like most poetry readings, not limited, you can have body movement, percussion background, voices interacting” (Seattle Sun, 1981). Getting into the spirit, the writer mentions an early Red Sky performance I gave from “The Darjeeling Chronicles.” When I asked for accompaniment, he wrote, Don Wilsun obliged by filling in with his signature deep drumbeats. Not only that but Wilsun promised a tambourine the following Sunday. He encouraged writers, performers and musicians to explore acoustic and theatrical elements to stimulate and dramatize written work.
As I meandered in and out of town over the next few years, our paths crossed intermittently. When a new book came out, she generously hosted a party before a Richard Hugo House performance. She also hosted a seventy-fifth birthday party for herself at a community space complete with a dance band, food, and drink to welcome old friends, literati, neighbors, writers and family.
After I relocated to Upstate New York, I was thrilled to get the VIP treatment, air tix, hotel, and generous honorarium to fly into town for the festival one year where I opened for Michael Ondaatje during the heyday of The English Patient bestseller days.
Our stage—the Opera House! Whoa!
At the time literary performance art was hot. So were spoken word artists accompanied by musicians—de rigeur in the Emerald city pre-Hugo house days. Credit goes to Red Sky Poetry Theatre for offering poets and writers their first stage to try out work in front of a live audience. For
another early performance work of mine, Sacred Terrain, a countercultural sixties Himalayan travelog, I arranged for David Kasper, a sitar player (Humingbird recordings) to accompany me at the Pike Place Market’s Soames Dunn Building for a Sunday afternoon Red Sky event.
There were a number of ways our lives paralleled each other.
In 1982 and 1985 I received two fellowships that took me out of state. The first a Cullen Fellowship to study in the Creative Writing Graduate Program at the University of Houston. The first year in late August, I flew to Houston to enroll, then returned to Seattle to oversee the Literary Arts Program at the Labor Day festival. By the time I caught a Tuesday morning red eye back to Houston, I was completely exhausted but filled with the sweet reminiscences of meeting so many literary friends again, catching up on news, gossip, jobs and social life.
Regretfully, when I realized I couldn’t commute from Texas for the next year’s festival, I passed the mantle on to Judith. The other fellowship was at the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington, D.C. where I was excited to learn the fundamentals of running a nonprofit literary arts organization which I hoped would help me establish a fledgling Literary Center. Back in town together with Jeanne Yeasting we founded The Literary Center in a loft above 45 Street Books in the Wallingford district of Seattle in 1985. The building was a book mecca first established by Raymond Mungo’s Montana Books and later became the first home of Seattle’s Open Books: A Poem Emporium.
In various capacities I continued supporting the Bumbershoot Book Festival by taking the reins of the Small Press Bookfair as manager—it was always exciting and fun. Not to forget Judith’s famous after-parties. When
With Judith Roche (Sam Hamill of Copper Canyon Press in background) at the Bumbershoot Small Press Bookfair 1981.
she realized she couldn’t continue to host the gatherings at her house during a full weekend, she added a Literary Soiree to her Festival budget. Smart move. A catered, fun, tasty, and classy festival cocktail party and no shopping, cooking or dishes to wash.
As my nonprofit writers’ center outreach project expanded, I realized that a tabloid of news, reviews and articles by and about local writers and publishers would be the most useful for the literary community at that time, so with a volunteer crew I started soliciting books, articles, gossip, news, whatever. Luckily a grant I received covered some expenses including fees to pay the writers published in The Literary Center Quarterly which launched in 1987.
An article Judith wrote “A Tale of Toronto,” that appeared in The Literary Center Quarterly, Spring 1989 issue, featured the Toronto Writers Festival. During Judith’s Bumbershoot leadership, she worked with One Reel to keep expanding the scope of their literary programs. For inspiration they researched other literary festivals around the country.
“There were so many social events for the writers,” Judith noted about Toronto, “including parties, gala dinners and excursions in fleets of buses to places like Niagara Falls. It became clear that the focus of this festival was not the audiences but the fifty writers themselves and what might happen just by getting them together. And it was heady to be in a room with all of those mentioned and more, just talking!”
It was clear to her that the Toronto festival was funded by large corporate investors and Canada Council money. Not so in Seattle.
Judith’s support of local writers and artists was acknowledged, along with her editing Ergo! Bumbershoot’s annual literary magazine for ten years, as reasons she received from One Reel a Golden Umbrella Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts in September 2005 after her twenty year Bumbershoot tenure ended.
“If we care about the ongoing process of making culture, we must be in dialogue with artists around the world,” she commented.
An instance of international dialogue soon surfaced when Dr. Jane Goodall, well-known anthropological primatologist passed along a suggestion to One Reel— why not encourage, engage and teach children how to care for our planet, she suggested, and learn more about the salmon. One Reel’s resources and international friendships could be utilized and the project would coincide nicely with Goodall’s Children’s Initiative foundation.
The idea became a reality when poet Meg McHutchinson, a One Reel special projects organizer, and Judith were selected as editors of what was dubbed the Wild Salmon Project. Meg and Judith consulted with indigenous author and filmmaker Sherman Alexie before reaching out to the international community of salmon fishermen, tribal leaders, biologists, environmentalists, artist and poets on two continents to share their stories.
They were amazed at how many cultures were influenced by native salmon festivals, celebrations, tales and myths. The final book First Fish First People was a multiyear project with a mission to raise awareness among all salmon cultures to share as inheritors and stewards of the salmon legacy. Contributors came from Spokane, Coeur d’ Alene, Warm Springs, Colville and the communities of Makah, Coastal Salish, Okanagan and Tlingit continuing north and east and across the Pacific coastal rim to the Ainu people of Japan.
Historical black and white photographs of ancestral stewards, storytellers, artists and musicians fill the book. Voice after voice reiterated the urgency to dismantle the many dams that threatened the salmon’s mythic return upstream when near death to spawn in their place of birth. The book showed a prescient awareness of the importance of current movements to dismantle dams to aid salmon spawning.
Portraits of hunters with spears, nets, or hand trolling abound in the book. Their equipment included carved wood canoes, hide skin boats or rafts. Photographs captured village salmon drying racks, and roasted, baked and other indigenous cooking methods and traditions. Archival portraits of storytellers, playrights, dancers, and artists captured those who worked to protect the salmon legacy for future generations.
“Here in the Northwest, we are haunted by the ghosts of salmon,” Jane Langill wrote in the preface to the book.
Indigenous storyteller Vi Hilbert provided the Dedication:
As we honor the Spirit of the Salmon, the First People give thanks to the Creator for informing us that
“The Earth is our first teacher!” May humans learn to study and listen to our first teacher so we may all survive and together honor Earth’s gifts.
The book, a welcomed addition to schools, as well as private and public libraries, was co-published in 1998 by the University of Washington Press and One Reel both of Seattle. It was awarded the prestigious American Book Award, presented by the Before Columbus Foundation a nonprofit educational and service organization dedicated to the promotion and dissemination of contemporary American multicultural literature. Their goal—to provide recognition and a wider audience for the wealth of cultural and ethnic diversity that constitutes American writing.
Judith’s salmon research continued and ultimately spawned a rich outpouring of poems that explored the salmon’s life and legacy in the Northwest. After she received a grant from the Seattle Arts Commission, her Salmon Suite series of poems was installed at the Hiram Chittenden Locks in Seattle’s Ballard district. Today visitors to the fish ladder for migrating salmon can press a button and hear Judith reading aloud. The exhibit changes every season to coincide with the salmon’s migrations.
An excerpt about smolt, a stage in the salmon life cycle, describes how they travel backwards until they reach salt water Mid-April to late July. Judith’s poem is written from the point of view of the fish:
Being young, I don’t know where I go. I face my lake and float backward into my future.
Trembling on the edge of what I can’t yet see, green-shadowed I go with water’s flow and trust strange rapture singing in my blood, ride the river like a knife’s edge.
“Fishtown, Lower Skagit,” from All Fire All Water and “The Salmon Suite Poems” reaffirm Judith’s deep personal sense of place in the Northwest, her pleasures, the wildness. The poems also carry an essential message on the importance of preserving the environment.
In closing, I’ll defer to Jud (1941-2019) as I always knew her, as friend and confident for forty years, with gratitude and admiration. From her last book All Fire All Water (Black Heron Press, 2015) two short quotes:
…We’re pilgrims searching the ghost of Fishtown hovering in this Skagit rain but most shacks have been torn down, the land logged, leaving bare bones, or nothing but green.
The hopeful artists and scholars of the estuary scattered, mostly still around the valley, still making art. All in our sixties and seventies now.
Some have passed, a life lived for art—as ephemeral as a dance
but many leave a trail of poems and paintings behind.
(from Fishtown, Lower Skagit) *
…We are stardust and story and caught in time of existence as metaphor— for what? That we are stars and, like stars, will become dust when we die old?
But it’s so old, this grand, often told story— that we are dust and return to dust—
… we are all old souls, stuff of ancient stars singing our story and whatever it says about our mixture of spirit and dust.
We are the metaphor for the story old souls swirling in the wind tunnel of time, spirit and star and dust.
(from Metaphors of Dust)
Charles Hertz
Frosted Jill Johnson
FICTION
Lucas Cunningham
Beartop
He saw the fire from across the valley. A lightning strike had lit a Ponderosa pine standing a little taller than the rest. In the electric heat, the flames had jumped from one treetop to the next like a lit book of matches. Now the fire cut its way down the gulley between two high ridges. Soon it would reach the river, where it would either stop or make its way across and up the near side of the valley toward where his lookout stood. The wind shook the building’s aging shutters, but there was no rain. He walked the six feet from his cot to the desk where the telegraph controller sat and tapped out the first message they’d made him memorize a year ago: FIRE. Full stop.
He followed it with the necessary information, which he transcribed from his logbook: BEARTOP LOOKOUT stop WEST SUN RIVER FOOTHILLS stop 8 PM stop AUG 8 stop LIGHTNING STRIKE stop AWAITING DIRECTION full stop. The Morse dictionary sat on the desk, but he’d long since stopped having to use it. Another lightning strike lit up the air, casting the quarters in relief for a moment. The thunder came just moments later. In the quiet, he lit his pipe and listened. No response so far on the telegraph. He tapped out the message again. As he reached for the controller, a spark jumped between his hand and the metal. He swore. The line must have broken nearby. It would need repairing. Shaking his hand to rid it of its deadness, he sighed and headed for the door, taking his faded grey field jacket from its hook and shrugging into it. He checked that his revolver was securely seated at his hip, then reached for the door handle. Looking up at the shaking glass pane, he was startled by the reflection he tried to avoid.
The jacket, once his size, hung loosely off his shoulders. The job kept him strong enough,but the spare rations and the confined quarters had eaten away his bulk. His face was similarly gaunt, his youthful bone structure cast in skeletal shadows by the pulsing glow of the pipe hanging from the right corner of his mouth. His pupils, deep set and ringed with blue, reflected the flame, dilating and contracting with each draw of the pipe. They were sadder than he remembered, and smaller. The soft stubble coating his jawline belied his twenty-six years of age. His close-cropped brown hair was starting to grow out, leaving only the jacket and the revolver to remind him of the time before. He pushed open the door.
Outside, the air hummed. The earth anticipated rainfall, turning over with the smells of creosote and sawdust. He looked out across the valley to the west. The fire was near the river now, licking its way out of the gulley and across the scrub plain between the foothills and the water. The wind blew past him from the east, pushing away the smoke that now billowed from the trees and dissolving the last of the storm clouds against the triangular peaks of the Three Sisters and the stark abutment of the Chinese Wall. The smoke veiled the setting sun, its smell accumulating in the air despite the wind. He turned and walked the few steps to the eastern side of the peak. There, the cliff face fell below him, hundreds of feet down to rocks that climbed back up the other side of the basin, becoming Headquarters Pass and the crags and buttes of the Front Range, and miles beyond that, the town of Great Falls. He stepped tentatively toward the edge, then back, afraid the wind would change and carry him over the precipice. In these conditions, the fire would cross the river. He was glad to be above the treeline, where the flames could not reach.
Turning away from the cliff and back to the west, he picked his way down among the small rocks strewn across the trail. It snaked steeply downward for about two hundred yards before it reached a clearing at the edge of the forest, where the backcountry rangers tied their horses and deposited his supplies every two weeks. Turning, he looked back up at the lookout building. It was a stilt-less wooden square, erected stoutly among the rocks at the mountain’s peak. It often struck him as imposing, but today it looked old, the peeling whitewash and aging pinewood still visible from a distance. Rounding the first switchback, he saw the problem: an old calcified beech tree the lines were fastened to had been blown over in the wind, and the lines had broken loose. The thin wires flailed in the wind like spiders’ silk. He moved calmly toward the tree, feeling the rocks shifting beneath him. It reminded him of the volcanic flats in Sonora,where they had to cross thirty miles by moonlight to avoid the deadly heat and enemy patrols. In the moonlight, one misstep could cost him his ankle, and a shout of pain could cost him his whole detachment. Many twisted their ankles. No one shouted. A wire flew back across the slope, whipping down his back and piercing his right calf. He gritted his teeth. The coat
had saved him from the worst of it, but reaching back, he could feel blood running from a small cut under his right ear, and he could see another dark spot blossoming through his pant leg. He kept on until he reached the tree. Here, he saw the ragged strands of the wires where they had snapped in the wind. It was clear, between the downed tree and the flayed and flailing wires, that there would be no reestablishing the connection with anything short of a mule team. Shaking his head, he limped back up the hill, careful to give the wires a wide berth.
He shut and latched the door of the cabin behind him, feeling the rigidity of the glass windowpanes as they flexed in the wind. The telegraph mutely received his half-hearted attempt to send another message. His leg hurt. He sat on the edge of the cot and looked back toward the fire. It had reached the river, where it lapped and spread along the western bank. He knew it would soon make the jump across and spread up the hill toward the treeline. How soon, he wasn't sure. Out the window, the flames were beginning to throw longer shadows in the twilight. He sighed and reached under the bed, fumbling to grasp the handle of his footlocker. Opening it,he removed a roll of bandages and a metal flask, both nestled neatly in the top of the metal container. He drank deeply from the flask, then poured it over his leg, stiffening from the pain. It reminded him of another pain, from another time. The time before, when he’d stepped on a stingray in the Gulf of Mexico. The same shock at being punctured, the venom that burrowed into bone. Then, she’d helped him up the beach to the house and dressed the wound. They’d sat together in silence, him resisting the poison welling in his blood, her thinking about the child that was soon to come. His eyes stung with the smoke.
In a practiced motion, he wrapped his calf in the bandage, tearing the edge and tucking it over itself. Returning the rest of the roll to the box, he laid back on the cot, closing his eyes. He'd been in worse than this—up here among the rocks, he wasn’t in any real danger—and he’d need his strength to repair the telegraph lines in the daylight. He closed his eyes and waited.
A crashing sound and a sudden rush of warm, dirty air jolted him awake. He sat upright suddenly, coughing. There was a sharp pain in his calf and a dull throb settled beneath it. It was dark, but there was still a faint glow in the sky. The door banged angrily back and forth on its hinges. He reached for the gas lamp, taking a match from his breast pocket and striking it on the edge of the bed frame. The small cabin flickered into view. It flashed wildly as the lamp flame struggled to cast its light against the smoke and rushing air that filled the cabin. The wind had thrown the door open, splintering the wood around the clasp. He rushed to push it closed as the charts from the desk swirled around him. With some effort, he brought the door closed, and dragged the desk toward him to keep it from opening. The glass rattled but held fast. As he turned back toward the bed, he looked for the first time out the window, and saw the source of the glow.
The entire valley was on fire. Up and down the river valley, the pines and firs were torches in the night. They lit up the air, and their acrid smoke rose in plumes to meet the dark clouds above. The wind had changed direction with sudden intensity. Now it drew the smoke toward him, and the fearsome vista faded into a hazy glow as the fumes enveloped the cabin. Even with the door closed, he began to cough. He stumbled back to the bed, kicking over the footlocker he’d left open on the floor as he did so. He swore, kneeling gingerly to the ground to recollect its contents. He tore another strip from the roll of bandages, wrapping this one around his face. Between the improvised mask and the clearer air near the floor, his cough began to subside as he shoved his effects roughly back into the metal can. A small leather folio gave him pause, and he opened it, peering through the haze at its contents. A photo of him and her and the child. Five years past now. In it, he stood proud, his jacket pressed and proudly emblazoned with a silver star, his arm around her. She was pretty, even after the child. Their eyes shone with youth and happiness. Between them, the child, in her Sunday dress, clung to his hand for support. Her knuckles were white. He’d been called to fight two weeks later. The child had cried,and she had cried too, quietly and with a longing he hadn’t understood. He understood it now. He replaced the folio and pushed the footlocker back under the bed. He drank deeply from his flask, replaced the bandage firmly over his mouth, and got back in bed facing the wall. The smoke swirled lazily in the air.
The next day, he woke under a blanket of ash. He could see across the room to the door of the lookout, but no further. The bandage over his mouth was black with soot. He coughed. His leg throbbed and he had a splitting headache. He stood up, swaying in place as his vision receding into nothing, then returned. The rest of the flask dulled the pain in his leg and
made his head hurt more. Better to walk than to think. Outside, he could see even less—not the clouds or the river, barely the sun. The wind kept the smoke flowing, clawing at his blackened mask and stinging his eyes. The air was full of heat. He tried to walk down the hill, but he kept losing the trail. Returning to the lookout, he tied one end of the coil of new wire draped over his shoulder to the metal lattice that the telegraph lines affixed to the top of. It swayed back and forth, a pendulum marking time. He played the line out behind him, mirroring the lattice’s oscillations as he walked back and forth down the slope. The time he marked was uneven, increasing with his distance from the lookout. Every so often, a bolt of lightning would flash, diffusing through the smoke in an otherworldly flicker. Twice, he caught his foot on a boulder and fell. The air grew hotter the farther down he got. He began to sweat. A dark lump resolved itself in the smoke. The old tree. Impossibly, it had burned to charcoal, the old wires melted away into the rock. They had left behind thin silver streaks like mercury wrought solid, sinewy rivers running downhill.
On the third day, the flames grew closer. They were constant, flaring and flickering,obscured within the smoke. Out the window, they seemed to be within yards of the lookout,lapping at the stone beneath them like the waves on the gulf. When he limped outside to look closer, the fire seemed to recede, drawing down the mountain as he approached, retreating strategically back to the tree line. The wind seemed to blow in every direction, fueling the blaze and forcing smoke into his lungs. He returned to the lookout, and the clouded flames rose with him, standing sentinel once again around the shale clearing at the doorstep. He’d opened another bottle of whiskey, and he drank from it, wishing he had a glass, or some ice. The rations gave him a bottle every two weeks, but he paid the rangers extra—almost half his paycheck—to bring in a case every month. His headache had only grown worse. The pipe helped, for a time, the pain pulled away by the smoke he drew in through the hole he’d cut in the mask. The pain always returned, rising back into his skull when he wasn’t looking like the flames outside.
Around what might have been noon on the fourth day, a burning man walked out of the smoke. He’d watched the shape detach itself from the ever-present flames and make his way into the clearing, straining his eyes to make it out. Now, he stumbled outside, calling out. The wind had stopped. The man said nothing, stepping dumbly across the shale, the ragged vest he wore still engulfed in bright tendrils. As the man drew near, he could see his face under the shadow of his wide straw hat. Half of it had burned away, the bone mottled with soot, the skin leathery and dark. He drew the gun, aiming it at the man and backing into the doorway. To his surprise, the man did not pursue him, instead walking past him toward the cliff face. He called out again, this time for the man to stop. The man said nothing, continuing slowly forward. He saw three bullet holes in the man’s lower back through the shifting flames. They disappeared as the man stepped over the edge, falling from view. He moved cautiously to look over the cliff, but he could see only smoke, hiding the depths as it twisted in the air. He heard a soft click. Looking down at his hand, he thought he’d seen the cylinder of the gun rotate. A few hours later, another figure emerged, walking the same path. A young woman in a flaming poncho stained dark red. Again, he ran outside and called out. Like the man, she was unaffected by his cries. This time, he recognized her. His detachment had been sent into a small border town that was sheltering a band of raiders. They’d come in the night, tearing the men from their homes and gunning them down from horseback. Some had fought back, and the young kid from Arkansas he’d befriended had been shot and killed. Filled with anguish and blood thirst,he’d stormed into the last house on the street, a small adobe building. The leader of the raiders had been there, huddled in a corner, holding tight to the woman in the poncho who now walked past him in a daze. She’d refused to move. He’d shot her, his fingers still wet with the kid’s blood as he pulled the trigger, and dragged the leader out into the street. The gun clicked again,rotating
Tami Phelps Hold On
as she plunged over into the smoke.
For three days they came, burning bodies out of the flames. Always alone. Mostly men,clad in weathered riding boots and sand-colored dusters half-scorched by fire. A few women,young, eyes bloodshot with fear and smoke, the panic of a rearing horse. Once, a young boy carrying a bundle of rags, who had tripped walking up the slope and skinned his knee. He hadn’t cried out. The boy’s features had furrowed in fierce concentration as he’d struggled to his feet. It had reminded him of his daughter, and he’d turned away. Silently, the boy had continued, tears rolling red and silver down his face until he too stepped over the cliff’s edge. The flames never wavered from their umbral duties, steeping the lookout in smoke and shadow. He gave up trying to recognize the faces. He sat on the bed, watching them pass through the window or not at all. He didn’t sleep. After the boy, he’d stuffed the gun deep in his footlocker and plugged his ears with cotton. Still, with each solitary procession, he could hear the soft click marking its inevitable end. He ran out of tobacco and began to burn the paper of the logbook. The chemical richness of the ink dulled his mind and turned his teeth the color of the soot-drenched mask he'd discarded on the floor. Without the wind, it was quiet. Only the eleven empty whiskey bottles in the corner and the twenty-eight clicks of the revolver marked the passage of time.
The bodies stopped, and the wind returned. A faint red orb hovered on the horizon—sunrise. He finished the twelfth bottle and staggered outside to relieve himself. His bare face was stained by tobacco, ink, and soot. His eyes were red. His leg had become infected and begun to fester. He hadn’t wanted to waste any more whiskey to treat it. Strangely, the pain in his head had gone away. This was a good sign. He smiled to himself, his black teeth parting through cracked lips. The fire was burning through its fuel. The wind would blow away the smoke. It would be over soon.
As he finished, he heard a sound from the smoke. A pained roar cut under by a low growling. Swaying, he peered down the hill into the smoke. A shape began to emerge, larger by far than any of the bodies, a great mass of flame and flesh. A grizzly bear set ablaze. It lumbered up the hill toward him. He stumbled backwards toward the lookout door. He tripped on the threshold and fell to the floor. The door swung shut behind him. He scrambled to the bed,reaching frantically under it for the footlocker. Outside, the bear let loose another wretched cry as it drew closer. He rifled through the can, flinging its contents across the room until his hand closed around the gun. A flickering shadow fell over the door, and the bear came into view through the glass of the door. He could feel the heat from its flames. For a moment, it stared at him through the glass with depth less ferocity. Its black eyes pulsed, reflecting the wavering fire of its burning coat. It roared and stood on its hind legs. He closed his eyes and fired, pulling the trigger until the cylinder rotated emptily, its ineffectual clicks devoid of their potency.
He opened his eyes. The bullets had torn holes in the wood panels of the door and shattered the glass in a wild spray. He couldn’t see the bear, but as he huddled against the bed,quaking and shivering, a thin trail of blood emerged from under the door. It shone, somehow both dull and bright. Cautiously, he got to his feet, steadying himself on the door frame. He pushed open the door until it stopped against something, then slid outside through the gap.
On the ground outside the door lay his daughter. Five years later and twice grown, but unmistakable. Her eyes were closed tight in pain, and she wore the same furious concentration of the boy with the skinned knee as she tried not to cry. She wore a Sunday dress, perfectly pressed and unmarred by smoke or dirt, except at her stomach, where a single red circle was quickly expanding from its epicenter. As he fell to the ground, pressing his hands over the wound, she opened her
Sheary Clough Suiter
Tipping Point (oil and cold wax on cradled panel)
eyes in shock. They fixed on him with desperation, and in them he saw her, saw the pain and the fear and the loneliness. The tears she fought to keep from falling.
It hurts, Papa.
I know, child. I’m here.
He turned his attention to the wound. The bullet—his bullet—had hit her in the stomach. She was losing blood, but already it had slowed. He thought about getting some whiskey to pour in the wound, but there was none left. It wouldn’t help much anyway. He had seen wounds like this before. She would remain in pain for many hours, but this far from an operating table, she would die. She drew a ragged breath and grabbed tight to his hand, her knuckles white and red. Her eyes clung to him like her hand, raw and searching for an answer that did not exist.
Please.
It’ll be okay, child. It’ll be over soon.
Another wave of pain took her, and her concentration failed. She began to cry
Why, Papa?
I’m so sorry, child. I thought there was a bear, the smoke, and the bodies, and—
Why didn’t you come home?
All at once, the numbness fell away, and he felt everything. He felt the longing that had settled in his chest as his horse carried him away from that little house on the gulf for the last time. The patriotic pride that welled up in him when he pinned that silver star to his breast. The confusion, the feeding frenzy, the horror and fear and fury of the towns beyond the border. Pulling the trigger for the first time, that thing unlike any other. The shame that followed it, and that other darker thing that followed it, the one that no one talked about, the one that felt best of all, the one that stayed deep in his mind but never left.
I was afraid, child. Afraid to face you, afraid to hurt you. I’m covered in death, and I was afraid if I came home, it would cover you too.
There was silence, for a moment. The wind swirled around the mountaintop, whistling through the shattered lookout window and across the mouths of the empty whiskey bottles and rattling the branches of the dead tree. She looked at him then, and she saw him, and he saw her,and what passed between was that which can only pass between a father and a daughter.
I’m afraid, too.
She opened her arms, shaking with the effort, and he fell into them, and he held her. He held her, and remembered how it felt to hold her, how she’d felt as a child, weightless in his arms, how they’d played laughing in the surf and he’d thrown her high into the air and caught her so surely, how’d she’d clung to him as he’d hugged her goodbye and turned his head away before she could see his tears. She could see them now, and he wept. Quietly, it began to rain.
The rangers found him there two days later, his empty arms wrapped around himself as he lay shivering on the summit ground. The rain had washed clean his face. The gun was next to him. There were no more bullets. Wordlessly, he stood up and began the long journey home.
Jill Johnson
Roland Goity
Where the Lairs Are
The loping sow and her two cubs thrived in this forest. They played and napped under a canopy of Douglas fir, western red cedar, and big leaf maple that kept them reasonably dry even on the drizzliest of days as they followed the creeks and blackberry bramble. They rested in thicketed brush, fanned by Devil’s club and shaded by western red hemlock and red alder. And in the late evenings and early morning hours, they often roamed this side of the mountain where everything was lit up in the new developments. Once the lights dimmed and then faded away, they’d find an abundant variety of food in unlocked containers, especially on nights before the garbage trucks came. Those offered a bona fide ursine buffet. Tonight, when the neighborhood grew quiet, alarms were set, and heads hit pillows, the sow shouldered down the hill. Her cubs trailed right behind her, all in search of midnight snacks. The bears were darker than the night itself, essentially invisible. But they padded a bit clumsily, thwacking through sticks and branches, and clomping down on Big Wheels and leaf rakes left out by residents which cracked under their weight. The sow batted down a container and pawed open its lid. However, before the trio could really start feasting, a light beam met their eyes. “Bears!” someone called out. The animals immediately high-tailed it up the mountain and out of sight.
They were not yet a quarter mile up the mountain that morning before Weiping, her weekly hiking partner, was already winded. Alicia Coverdale may have been septuagenarian and twice his age, but she left him in the dust every time they ventured up the trail behind their townhome community. It was something she counted on.
The tandem was an unlikely pair with little in common. Alicia was a retired high school English teacher, long widowed, who volunteered a significant amount of her time at three community organizations. All of these organizations had connection to upholding the beauty and ecosystem of the beautiful Northwest she now proudly considered home. Weiping had originally come to Washington state from a small town in Guangdong for his undergraduate (and graduate) studies. He was a computer programmer who worked remotely and made far more money than he could spend for his single needs. For someone so active, he carried a sizable paunch due to an addiction to (he called it a love for) the junkiest of junk foods. Yet, despite such different backgrounds between the two, their shared love of hiking tied them together several hours each week.
Alicia, her white hair bound in a scrunchie, waited for Weiping as he turned up the latest switchback toward her. She pointed with her trekking pole at a dark clump of kielbasa-size stools filled with blackberry and salmonberry seeds “Looks like one of our big furry friends took a rest stop here recently,” she said.
Weiping went wide-eyed behind his glasses. “Must be a big one, right?”
Alicia smiled. “Definitely. Probably just a big teddy bear, but keep your eyes peeled.”
Eventually, they crested a ridge and reached their favorite destination, a big rock outcropping that offered plenty of places to sit. They rested there and enjoyed the view of their nearby lake, although at this distance it looked like a thick blue question mark, the boats sailing and motoring across it nothing more than little white dots. After Weiping wolfed down a Hostess Twinkie—a favorite hiking snack as he claimed the cream-filled sponge cake always gave him “instant energy”—he grabbed his phone from his jacket pocket in order to check his fitness app and see if he’d already reached his calorie-burning goal. In the meantime, however, a text arrived that startled him.
“Uh oh,” he said.
“What is it?” Alicia asked.
“You didn’t get a text from the HOA management company?”
She fished her phone from her carry pack, but shook her head. “No service.”
Weiping relayed the information. A bear had been spotted within the hour at one of the playgrounds in their community. All homeowners were urged to exercise caution and keep their cats inside. “Odd to say nothing about children or even dogs, just cats,” he said. His pinched face bore a befuddled expression, evident even behind his eyeglasses.
“Could be the bear whose scat we saw back there,” Alicia said. “Might have really startled someone. They are adorable
from afar but far from adorable in places like a playground.”
“I think they’re more like pests only. Like giant rats. They mean no harm.”
They stood, stretched a bit, and then headed back down the trail. Two minutes passed before Alicia restarted their conversation from where it had dropped. “Bears don’t go looking to cause trouble but they’re apex predators and we’re another rung down the food chain, so you have to always be aware of the danger.”
Weiping was losing ground and falling further behind, so he half-shouted over the crunching sounds of their fastmoving boots: “I guess, but how often do they hurt anyone? I mean, for real.”
“Well, they certainly get a raw deal around here,” Alicia said, her words ebbing and flowing with the ups and downs of the trail as she set the pace. “People are so careless with their garbage. It’s an all-you-can-eat buffet. Who can blame the bears?”
“Seems like everyone blames them,” Weiping said, as a mirror latched to the side of Alicia’s pack caught sunlight and reflected it his way. “But if we mind our business, they mind theirs.”
Alicia stopped abruptly and turned around. “While I agree with you, Weiping, it’s not as simple as that. Oh, how I wish it were.” *
Two weeks passed. In and around their mountain town, bears had made their way into (and had their way in) the kitchens of three homes, the pantries of three others, and the entertainment room of another, where an 85-inch, 8K, flat-screen TV was left in shambles after (experts surmised) an adult male bear attacked his reflection in a battle he couldn’t possibly win. In other encounters, a dog was killed, a goat was eaten, and an audio tech mogul’s Lamborghini was turned inside-out. And an officer of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife came to the Forest Foothills community where Alicia, Weiping, and others resided, and alerted those who attended that quarter’s HOA meeting in the community clubhouse of the dangers the bears posed and the responsibility they all had in keeping the area safe—both for themselves and for the bears. The event was standing room only.
“We are encroaching on their area, too, when you think about it,” the officer, who had introduced himself simply as “Cole;” was saying, his voice cracking a bit from nerves. He wore no name badge, so it was unclear if Cole was his surname or given name. He was tan and blond, and appeared fresh out of college. In front of the homeowners, he seemed quite uneasy. Only the department-issued olive hiking pants and khaki button-down shirt with the WDFW logo embroidered on its sleeve gave him any sense of real authority.
“So, what should we do if we spot one? Or find evidence that they’ve been tramping our flower beds or clawing up our decks and porches” said a heavyset woman in a wheelchair, whom neighbors like Alicia and Weiping often saw outside on sunny days, carefully navigating her way around her small garden out front with a spray hose in hand.
“Give us a call immediately,” Officer Cole said, scanning the few dozen faces in attendance—far and away a recordsetter for the quarterly gathering, which most considered a guaranteed snoozefest. “If necessary, we’ll send a team out right away.”
Weiping, dipping his hand into the full-size bag of nacho cheese-flavored Doritos he cradled, looked over and caught Alicia’s attention. He gave her a shrug and an eyeroll. The officer rubbed the palms of his hands together and began shifting his feet, seemingly ready to head for the door.
Cheryl Stadig
Bear Country
“What will happen to the bear?” said a little girl with a braided ponytail in a high-pitched squeak. She wore a purpleand-black polka dot dress, and was the only child at the meeting. Her white-bread parents behind her looked so proud, each with a hand resting on her respective shoulders.
Officer Cole stayed firmly planted on the square of carpet he’d wandered to, and forced a smile. “Well…ideally, they’ll be relocated,” he said.
“And if not, then what?” the girl’s father asked. He bent down and whispered something in his daughter’s ear.
“Will they be…you then iced?” the girl said, her precocious demeanor transforming into little more than infantile stammering as each successive word left her mouth.
“Excuse me?” the young officer said.
“Euthanized,” her father said. “Do you plan to kill the bears you capture that can’t be relocated?”
Officer Cole shrugged. “We certainly hope it doesn’t come to that, but no possibility is off the table.”
Alicia called out. “Listen up, everyone. The ranger here knows as well as I do that we—you and I and everyone here—are the reason for the increasing bear activity. Angus …” she nodded over at a thin graybeard in a plaid cardigan leaning against the near wall, “and you too, Mr. Lawrence,” directing her glance at a sizable black man in glasses whose thighs were like tree trunks. “How many times have I told you not to roll out your garbage cans the night before pickup. Yet, you do it repeatedly. And others of you don’t lock down your containers when you bring them out. Not to mention all the barbecue leftovers, the wings and sausages, that I picked up after Building A’s recent party. That is no way to live in bear country. These are beautiful animals that we need to respect—not just for our safety, but for theirs.”
“Well said,” Officer Cole finally offered, breaking an awkward silence after Alicia had finished speaking. He took no more questions, just thanked everyone for their time and attendance, and reminded them to notify the department right away should they encounter any bears. Then, as community members began to relax and mingle, he slipped through the double doors and into his truck.
Weiping watched their special guest’s sly retreat through the clubhouse’s picture window. He wandered over beside Alicia, who also was staring at the departing vehicle. “I have a bad feeling for the bears,” he said, before crunching a trio of tortilla chips between his teeth.
“You and me both,” Alicia told him.
Alicia rose even earlier than usual the next day, before sunup, in fact. She was attending a luncheon in Seattle later, a fundraiser for an organization that supports and facilitates the annual migration of five different species of salmon in the region’s lakes and streams. It was Thursday, the day of the week when she and Weiping always hiked together. She had asked if he wanted to join her at this earlier hour, but he chuckled in response as if the question were preposterous. He was a night owl, not an early bird.
That morning, as Alicia locked her door and headed out, she saw an unwelcome sight: toppled garbage cans up and down the complex and a multitude of paper wrappers, plastic bags, and fetid food matter across the pavement. It looked like Bourbon Street at first daylight on Ash Wednesday. The bears had paid another visit, and it worried her—for them. She wasn’t sure what the right answer to the bear “problem” was, but didn’t think the fellow from the WDFW and his cohorts knew either. She’d tell her neighbors to be more careful. Again, they were the source of the problem.
Since moving to the Pacific Northwest from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Alicia had told nary a soul, including Weiping, about the specifics of her husband’s death decades before. Although she wasn’t a fan of the sport, her husband Tom had been an avid hunter. When people heard he was killed bear hunting, they would immediately assume a bear had got him. Alicia had to then explain in an anguished voice that it was the result of friendly fire, a shotgun blast by one of Tom’s best buddies with whom he'd been hunting for years. Her husband’s death was the ultimate example of people reflexively giving bears a bum rap. As a result, she wasn’t as quick to judge those of the Ursus family as her neighbors were.
Even so, without Weiping to converse with, that morning’s hike had a different feel—and knowing that a bear or two lurked nearby didn’t help matters. A quarter-mile up the trail, Alicia thought about returning for her trekking poles, which she’d left in her garage. She sometimes used them on solo hikes, more so for any perceived protection they might offer as a weapon than their ability to provide stability and comfort her knees. She forged on without them, however, knowing
she had to hustle if she was going to get in a good hike and shower before the long drive west to Seattle.
This trail saw relatively little foot traffic compared to others nearby. It was a beautiful, forested path alongside rippling creeks, fern-strewn hillsides, and towering trees. The more popular trails offered more scenic views, but Alicia preferred the intimacy of this forest to the well-worn switchbacks of those trails where one had to constantly step aside for other hikers— “Grand Central Station hikes,” she called them. Yet, at the moment she had a strange sense she was being watched, and it unnerved her. She felt her heart pumping harder than usual, but instead of slowing down, she quickened her pace. The day’s first sunlight now filtered through the trees. She approached a turn where large mossy boulders shouldered the trail. Out of the blue, she found herself contemplating whether to invite her son’s family out for a visit before summer ended, or simply wait to see them at their Shaker Heights home over Thanksgiving weekend like she always did.
Alicia was mulling over this dilemma when the animal struck. The force of its weight sent her tumbling. It was on her instantly, its claws tearing through the fleece of her jacket and the skin of her flesh, its fangs puncturing her shoulder and cheek and thigh. She felt a searing pain throughout her body, but managed to lace her hands behind her neck and tried to fold into a ball to protect herself the best she could. Eyes closed now, she was cognizant of just one thing: This was her time and place to die. And then, unexpectedly, there was a great roar and crash and the terror ceased.
Alicia opened her eyes and focused through the pain just enough to see a big black bear had come to her rescue and fought off the cougar until it ran. She stole a look at her reflection in the mirror tied to her pack and didn’t like what she saw. She was drifting off, and her lids closed again, but she could feel the bear’s weight upon the dirt as it circled around—protecting her, she was sure of it. Suddenly, she heard people shouting from not far off, followed by the rumbles and snaps of the bear busting through brush on its way down the mountain. Then everything stopped.
Members of the hospital staff impressed Weiping with their professionalism and helpfulness. They expressed compassion when discussing and answering questions about the “terribly unfortunate situation” the day before yesterday. Alicia was hooked up to IV fluid bags and machines via catheter tubes and sensors. She looked every day of her age, which Weiping—always struggling to keep pace on their hikes together—hadn’t really thought possible until now. She would recover, the doctor said, but it might be a while until she could even communicate, and weeks until she could walk again, let alone hike.
With Weiping on the visit were fellow neighbors, the Malhotras, a middle-aged couple originally from Mumbai, who were also friendly with Alicia. They were among the rare few, as others in the community considered Alicia an irritable snoop. Presently, the Malhotras exchanged awkward glances with Weiping, as if asking: What do we do now? Weiping took the initiative to approach first.
“I hope you hear me, Alicia,” he said, but she didn’t budge from her apparent state of oblivion—a glassy stare and face devoid of any expression. Weiping expected nothing more; she was probably pumped full of morphine. Yet, he kept on, hoping his words would somehow get through. “We bring you flowers,” he said, nodding at a colorful dahlia bouquet in a glass vase Mr. Malhotra had set on a table by the window. Weiping enjoyed its fragrance and wondered how long it would be until Alicia could smell the flowers herself. “And a special box of chocolates for when you get your appetite back,” he added, not mentioning the fact that several chocolates were missing. He then cleared his throat before saying, “I have big news. We want to you to know hikers saw the bear…the one that attacked you.”
“She moved! She shook her head, I think,” Mrs. Malhotra said in an intoned voice from where she stood near the foot of Alicia’s bed.
“I think you imagine things,” her husband, beside her, said quietly.
They stared at Alicia, but there were no tangible signs of awareness. Weiping continued, “Rangers are taking care of it. For good. That bear will not hurt anyone else.”
“Ah! Again. She moved her head,” Mrs. Malhotra said, although neither her husband nor Weiping noticed. She quickly sidled up next to Weiping and leaned over the bed. “Can you hear me, Alicia? Can you hear me, Alicia?”
Those words became a mantra for a minute or two. The two men’s eyes met. Weiping gave a quick shrug, while his neighbor raised a brow. Weiping then reached for the nurse call-button and requested help. Soon, a nurse was checking on Alicia’s vitals while a doctor observed her after hearing Mrs. Malhotra’s recount of what she had seen. As far as they
could tell, the situation remained unchanged.
The doctor was quite tall with a pronounced jaw, and the Scandinavian name on her tag was one Weiping knew he could never pronounce. She explained that Alicia needed to stay in ICU for several more days at least. She said that reporters were already asking through back-channels on her condition, however, and stressed that these sensitive health matters should remain private if they or their neighbors were asked to comment. Hospital staff would fill the press in with what they needed to know.
“It’s been a rough forty-eight hours for her as you can see,” the doctor said, glancing at Alicia, then at the doorway. “Perhaps you can come back and visit tomorrow.”
The sow was moving slowly. She’d taken a gash to her chest in her confrontation with the cougar that would be slow to heal. After resting near a creek, she and the cubs now meandered along its contours down the mountain, hungry again. They saw a culvert, similar to those they used to travel under local highways. A sweet scent came from inside, berries and honey. The sow entered the culvert and her cubs followed. When they reached the pile of berries a trap door dropped shut behind them. Within hours, all three bears were tranquilized, and then euthanized, compassionately and humanely.
Laura Kalpakian
Arithmetic
Cait and Lizzie have $122 between them. Of this sum, Cait has contributed 65% and Lizzie, 35%. If they put their money together, they can splurge on these beautiful Italian shoes in the boutique window. They wear the same size shoe. They are roommates. Though their overall expenses—rent, utilities, phone—have lately incrementally increased by one third, still, pooling their funds, they can buy this pair of expensive Italian pumps. But should they? They have an upcoming occasion for which these shoes will be perfect. Stephanie and Mike’s wedding and all the corollary festivities, including the rehearsal dinner which Cait and Lizzie have been invited to as Stephanie’s old friends. Stephanie was their roommate. How much do these shoes have to cost before Cait and Lizzie cannot afford them?
Rent on their apartment is steep since Stephanie moved out. Cait and Lizzie cannot agree on a third roommate. So they must divide the rent in half, and as a result, they are obliged to practice petty economies, like Do we really need cable? Do we watch that much TV? What fraction of the electric bill must be paid each month? The arithmetic of everyday life grows monthly more complex; at the very moment that their funds must stretch, their paychecks seem to shrink. They make errors which are sometimes compounded by ignorance. They are neither of them too good at math, but please don’t tell the bank. They are tellers at the bank.
To save money and in the interest of fitness, Cait and Lizzie gave up restaurant lunches and took more walks. As they walked and nibbled French fries, they saw these Italian pumps in an expensive boutique window. They both admired the shoes. Neither could afford them. Both wanted them.
Dancing at Night Norma Sadler
To Cait the shoes seemed to tell a high-priced story of parqueted dance floors and jazz sextets, terrazzo-tiled patios and palm trees, the backseats of limousines, the sweet wheeze of the zipper sliding down the back of a skinny-strapped little black dress. Cait has not enjoyed these things in quite a while. Certainly not since her last boyfriend inflicted grievous injuries to her heart and confidence, in short, she had been dumped. And with no more ado than a text message. Her elasticity of spirit had crumbled. Cait always believed that of the three roommates, she, Cait would marry first. Lizzie and Stephanie were pretty, but Cait was the more outgoing, more eager, social and flirtatious; men were drawn to her as if to a magnetic field. There seemed however, in real numbers, to be fewer men these days. Why was this? Moreover, such men as there were, proved increasingly problematic, requiring an outlay of time [t] and energy [e] and often anguish [a] that was, algebraically speaking, not easily solved.
The problem of the shoes, however, could be solved. Cait and Lizzie can pool their funds and share the shoes. Since Cait contributes the larger share, she figures that more than half of the pair belonged to her, though it is hard to visualize how that would compute. Figuring their contributions in increments of time, however, they decided that Cait would wear the Italian pumps to the wedding proper with her burgundy pantsuit, and Lizzie would wear them to the rehearsal dinner to set off her plum-colored dress. It will be a church wedding.
The fact of this wedding (church or not) is galling, especially to Lizzie who had dated the groom briefly. In fact, the bride and groom love to tell the sweet, the touching story of how they had met. It went like this: Mike used to date Lizzie and often spent Saturday nights in Lizzie’s bed. Mike was an early riser. So was Stephanie. Lizzie was not. Such a charming story. It got told when Stephanie and Mike were dating. It got told at the engagement party. It got told and told and told. It will probably get told at the wedding. Lizzie doesn’t even want to go to the fucking wedding because everyone knows this fucking story, and she has to be such a good sport. And she is of course. Cait alone perhaps knows the extent of her hurt and humiliation, and how Lizzie hates being the butt of the joke. Of course it’s not a joke. It is a story. But it creates a problem for Lizzie, worse now because Stephanie has asked her ex-roommates, both Cait and Lizzie, to perform paltry functions at the wedding. Stand there and hand people the fucking feathered pen for the goddamned guest book. Lizzie vows Never. Never would she do this. She would not even go to the wedding.
Cait had to soothe Lizzie: But you must go to the wedding and you must grin over the guest book, otherwise people will think you were dumped and heartbroken, that you regret losing Mike to your roommate.
I did not lose him!
Lizzie always insisted she had broken up with Mike. And on a scale of 1 to 10, this was about a 4's worth of truth. Before she broke up with him, Mike told Lizzie he was glad they could still be friends. What? He said he was glad they weren’t either of them too serious about this relationship—could you even call it that?—and that he would always like Lizzie a lot. What? Mike then intimated, that is to say he spluttered and evaded a bit before actually announcing that he was seeing someone else. Stephanie. Their roommate. Then Lizzie broke up with him.
Stephanie, the early riser, shortly thereafter packed her things (19 boxes, with 10 cubic feet each available and how many trips will it take for her to remove her things to Mike’s apartment, a distance of 1 and 3/4 miles, using Mike’s car? Measure the cubic inches of the trunk and the backseat, including the floor space and divide by 12.) While Stephanie was moving, Lizzie left the apartment and Cait loyally stayed away with her. They returned quite late to find their key taped to the door of Stephanie’s empty room. They walked the dimensions of the empty room. It is still empty because Lizzie and Cait cannot agree on a new roommate.
They are fairly contented as they are, really. In their five years living together, Cait and Lizzie have learned to steer through each other’s rocky shoals and troubled waters. They are comfortable and so fine-tuned to one another they can communicate in the wordless parlance of longtime friends, sisters, or domestic partners. A third person, someone to take Stephanie’s room, is not necessarily a welcome addition, but the rent divided by two is a tremendous hardship. There is no money for shoes like these Italian pumps at $185. Figure in the tax at 8.7%
The clerk (Jason, said his nametag) takes the shoes from their crisp tissue swaddling. From that box wafts the pricey smell of spicy leather, the breezy confidence that a recognizable designer name bestows, a wisp, a frisson, a few notes from the jazz sextet and the sound of these high heels on a parqueted dance floor. All these elements factor into allbut-palpable poise, and self-esteem for whoever might wear these shoes. Cait and Lizzie sit side by side, laugh and say they’ll each try on one shoe. Jason asks no questions. He kneels in front of them, his knees apart, to slide the right shoe on Cait’s foot. His thighs strain slightly against the seams of his pants. His hair is a tiny bit spiked and he wears an almost
unobtrusive earring. A stud: not to put too fine a point upon it. It’s nice to have a man at your feet.
But as he slides the right shoe on Cait’s foot, his hand lingers rather overlong on her instep. Don’t even think about it, Cait inwardly mutters: I can have this pump up your nose and you sprawled flat ass backwards if you think you’re copping a feel off my foot.
But Jason, without so much as a glance, moves right along to Lizzie, blatantly cops a feel off her instep as he slides the left shoe on her foot. Lizzie doesn’t seem to mind. Lizzie smiles. Jason says together they make a fine pair. Of shoes.
Cait rises unsteadily to her feet, foot actually. Lizzie too. They laugh again, and sit down and Cait hands the right shoe to Lizzie. Cait has already decided when she gets married, she will give these shoes to Lizzie.
Jason watches, completely absorbed as Lizzie tries on both shoes and admires them. Stands, whirls so that her short skirt flounces in a sassy manner and her dimpled knees are visible. Across from them, a fat woman with bulging ankles sits down, vying for Jason’s attention. He ignores her. Lizzie hands the gorgeous shoes to Cait who tries them on, takes a few steps across the plush, promising carpet, regards the mirror critically, figuring the tangent of unspoken envy when she wears them to the wedding. So flattering is the effect of the high heels, she considers wearing a skirt instead of pants to the wedding. She and Lizzie chat and exclaim and Jason watches, enthralled. Cait sits back down and holds her feet at a 30º angle to obtain a better perspective. Are they worth it?
Jason asks if he should bring out another pair. You should both have these shoes, he insists.
But they can’t both have them. Or rather, they can, but not at the same time. The shoes must follow the laws of physics: no two bodies can occupy the same space at the same time.
We’ll take them, says Lizzie, enjoying that succulent expression.
We wear the same size, says Cait.
Sole to heel, Jason slides the shoes back into their tissued rectangular nest and says, to Lizzie, Well, if you will follow me, Madam.
Lizzie corrects him. She is Ms, not Madam. She says this with the verbal equivalent of the flounce of her short skirt. Cait rolls her eyes at Lizzie, and bristles wordlessly: Do not flirt with this twerp, Lizzie! He’s a shoe salesman! He’s too young for you!
But Lizzie shrugs and smiles and in their silent parlance, replies: It doesn’t hurt to stay in practice.
Jason rings up the sale. Cait and Lizzie combine their outstanding cash. Together they have two twenty dollar bills, seven tenners, three fives, but no ones. The shoes are over $200 with tax. They do not have enough. Jason says he can put the remainder on a credit card. Jason puts the shoebox in a bag with an expensive logo. Cait hands him her card. She holds her breath slightly when he runs it through. She’s pretty sure it isn’t completely maxed out, but not absolutely certain.
While they’re waiting to see if the card will go through, Cait, studying Jason, sees that he is probably not too young for Lizzie. Younger, yes. Without a doubt younger. But too young? In relative terms, what does that mean? Cait’s tolerance, her taste, her standards even, have lost some of their elasticity, not warped, no, just not yet regained their stability since the centrifugal force of being dumped with a text message. And how long ago was that? Not very long ago. Not really. Not on a scale where [xp] is to the time passed as [xr] is to the time remaining in her life. Realistically—Cait weighs the possibilities as Jason stands there, stud glinting in his ear—Jason is not too young for either of them. The card goes through. But wait. Jason erroneously charged more on the card. He doesn’t need all this cash which lies in a pile on the counter. Cait reaches for it because she used her card, but Lizzie thinks it should be divided between them. After all Cait and Lizzie are sharing the cost and sharing the shoes and sharing the rent and the apartment and utilities and their unremarkable lives from which Stephanie has departed.
And Stephanie is not the first roommate to have departed. There was another. About two years before Stephanie there was Martha. Martha also was a bank teller. Martha got a promotion, something Cait and Lizzie have not had for a very long time. But in order to accept the promotion, Martha had to transfer to the Omaha, Nebraska branch. Cait and Lizzie cracked up: Omaha-ha-ha? Who would want to live in Omaha-ha-ha? But Martha met someone in Omaha-ha-ha, and she had been living with him for a long time now. When Martha has occasion to email, she refers to him always as her domestic partner. Cait continually scoffs at this coy and bloodless phrase. At least she could say—my lover! Domestic partner sounds so very like, like, well, like roommates.
Like us, Lizzie remarked. Roommates like us.
Five years they have been together. Five years and counting.
So Jason, not knowing that 65% of the cash in front of them is Cait’s and 35% is Lizzie’s, looks at each. How much should each get? He doesn’t know. How could he possibly know? These are delicate domestic arrangements. Lizzie, seeing Jason’s hesitation, thinks briefly of losing Mike to Stephanie, the upcoming church wedding, and standing there with the fucking feathered pen at the goddamned guest book, a task she cannot possibly undertake if she has a date. She brings her hand slowly up and out to Jason.
Too late, though because Cait’s hand is already there. She takes the money. She signs the credit card slip. Jason drops the receipt in the bag, and it flutters there, landing atop the emerald green tissue paper, trademark of this boutique. Jason picks up boutique card by the register, also with the trademark, and he turns it over, scrawling numbers on the back. My number, says Jason, handing the card to Lizzie. Jason says Call me if you’d like to meet for a drink sometime. Anytime.
Absolutely unfair, thinks Cait. She wants to protest. After all, the greater cash contribution was hers (and by a substantial percentage too), and the attention, too, ought to have been divided 65/35. Cait can hear Lizzie talking to Jason about going to the wedding, that maybe he would like to come. Cait all but snaps Don’t do this! in their wordless way, but Lizzie is not listening. Well, Cait doesn’t care. If Lizzie wants to waste her time on a man who sells shoes, well fine. Fine. Let her. Cait starts towards the door (taking the big bag, expensive logo with her, thank you).
But Lizzie does not follow her lead. Lizzie lingers there with Jason, clearly enjoying the verbal equivalent of having her instep fondled.
Cait puts the bag down and opens her purse, starts to drop the money carelessly in, but doesn’t. No, she opens her wallet and puts the bills in one side and the coins in the other. The change she has been handed is both [greater> & lesser<] than getting used to Stephanie after Martha moved out. And now that Stephanie’s gone, there will be change [equal to = & greater than >] with the new roommate. But could there be any conceivable method for figuring the algebraic balances, the lopsided and incorrect equation if Lizzie should leave? Would Lizzie leave her?
This is an unsolvable problem. Cait and Lizzie, they have years together! They know how to live together (no easy feat, man or woman). They know each other’s pasts and habits. They have maneuvered domestically around Cait’s ingrained neatness, and Lizzie’s more relaxed housekeeping. They are loyal. They can talk without words. We are domestic partners! Cait wants to shout. If Lizzie moves out of the apartment, Cait will be domestically un-partnered, wretchedly uncomfortable around new roommates (assuming she could find them) or having to give up the apartment altogether, because she could not bear the weight, the sheer mass of the rent and utilities alone. Is this what lies before her, beyond the horizon of the checkout counter where Jason grins at Lizzie? Or is Cait seeing, squinting against the horizon of her own life, into the foreseeable distance (if indeed [xp] is to time passed as [xr] is to time remaining) and in that resulting density, the answer to the problem is that Cait needs to be loved and she isn’t.
The shoes were an error. Cait cannot afford them. Cait cannot afford to lose even a fraction of what was here at stake. In truth, there was only so much luck and so much love and so much good fortune in the world, and whatever fraction fell to you, that’s all you had, perhaps all you would ever have. Cait wonders if assembled in this place are the elements of her future. Will this unbalanced external torque named Jason somehow become the fulcrum of her life? Cait is suddenly short of breath, tense, fearful; some terrible inertia is drawing her gravitationally from the life she always figured she would axiomatically have: ie, Cait would be single and live with Lizzie for a time [sl] and then find a boyfriend and sleep with him and Decisions, Decisions
Phyllis Green
fall in love, or vice versa [bf], marry him and move through the rest of her married life [ml] at a measured velocity that would take her—where? Toward the children and career, the beautiful home and husband, which Cait would naturally manage effortlessly, beautifully while all her other married friends made a great botch of things and envied her.
But was that the actual algebraic solution to this problem?
What if these elements were not after all balanced on either side? Cait’s life thus far on one side of the equation, 29 years. And on the other, the time remaining in her life, vast and open-ended. But there would—or will—be that unknowable moment when the latter will be equal to, and then greater than the former. Inexorably, the years remaining to her will diminish. The years passed will be more numerous than the years remaining.
Cait wilts. Gets dry-mouthed. Lingers near the door. Watches Lizzie standing—metaphorically speaking—in the prow of a small undependable skiff named Jason, wordlessly waving bye bye Cait, moving into a distance Cait cannot calculate. Cait is powerless before all these signs and co-sines arranged somehow in a suddenly inflexible mathematical order. She should—she must—intervene to alter the trajectory of her life, and impede these circumstances before they defeat her. Before she finds herself forever unloved and alone, one of those women who does the unlovely arithmetic, niggling pennies, juggling bills, slicing off fractions of loaves of bread and calculating the strength of a twice-used teabag. One of those women whose ingrained neatness insists on tidy, whose nature abhors a jumble, who adores her cat. Cait must alter this trajectory. Now. Somehow. She must act, or she will be denied all that messy cluttered coupling and coming together: the difficult dawns, dreary midnights, the compromise and palaver, the straining against and pulling toward another person, all those little defeats adding up to the victory of not living alone, not dying alone, the victory of simple endurance: one plus one, equaling finally, something greater than the sum of its parts.
Lalo Morales
Movimiento
I remember the desert halls of silent clay homes worn hands pressing masa and silent stares of estranged recognition—
Outside the snow continues to fall. The power has gone out again, but that is no problem for us these days. Rosalia watches intently as I place the candle upon the mantle. Her green eyes follow the strike of the match as the dark home opens to a collected light. The figure of the praying woman on the candle is illuminated, her silhouette gathers on the wall.
“She looks sad.”
“Yes, I suppose she does, doesn’t she?”
“So, who is she?”
I pause before answering.
“An important mother.”
Her hands are still clasped for children who no longer remember her name. Her real name. But I would not tell Rosalia that. It seemed too harsh. Perhaps. Or perhaps none of that mattered. Not to a mother. Beneath such a mantle she can leave behind all names, all faith, all trappings of home. All for the children. Through rivers and mountains, to jungle, to desert. To lands of snow.
Rosalia regards my half answer. She is not impressed with it (nor dramatic pauses). She is right. I am too dramatic. Perhaps I will remember that for our next visit. She is pulling slightly on her curly black hair held back with a colorful band. There are bright images of colorful fish in a colorful sea. Salmon maybe, before their last trip. There I go again. She pulls tension on the strands, then releases. I’ve learned this habit well now; she is thinking over the next piece of the puzzle.
“And where did she come from?”
I remember stares across the asphalt, waiting always waiting. For the next appointment, the next bus, the next chance.
The lines were designed to break them, but limbo could not break those defined by movement.
We have been in transit all our lives.
“She came from México. Or perhaps another place, by a different name in a different time from before México.”
“And what was that called?”
“I don’t know Rosalia, I don’t think I can remember.”
From the kitchen we could hear laughter. Her mother and brother were spreading masa for tamales, a family favorite even here. Rosalia’s brother challenges his mother to a wrestling match with gusto and swagger, but the luchador is down in seconds. There is a shriek of excitement as mom takes the opportunity for tickles, and kisses. It is not this mother’s story I am telling, but perhaps it does not matter. She is not from that same place, from México, but by now it was normal. We were a motley serape now, more than a little worn. I suppose that is alright.
Rosalia looked over to the kitchen and smiled. Then she stood up, excited. For a moment it was as if I had lost her, her attention flew with ongoing thrills. I often thought this was the way of it with children. But just when I always think she is gone, she turns back. She has a habit of surprising me. I believe it is a verdant curiosity, growing, always like these black spruce trees around us now.
No mas nopales.
Some time ago my own mother introduced herself to these new neighbors, with all their strange habits and customs. From one stranger to another, she said this:
How long you wait, weighed down with snow, to watch these silent ongoings of winter.
Rosalia never met her. They were never connected. She never knew her by her real name. Only Jenny, never Juanita. I wonder if there still exists that same link. Of that other place, my mother’s place. Can I call it my place? What words could I use for that world we once called home? How would I have described it before these words? Before inglés. Would I use half-remembered Spanish? Would I have spoke in tongues of Huichol, or Náhuatl?
movimiento en movimiento, nada en nada
But things were different then. One day some might ask me why. I will say then that we moved to survive. Yes, we tore out that long cultivated life of roots and we replanted transience. We lacked definition by place, by community. We chose definition by diffusion, by future, by security. Ambition, desire. The mantra repeated along all the intersections of movement, in the caravans over rail and road.
Perhaps now things can be different. We can plant a new life of roots, here with our new neighbors, these patient spruce. All it will require in time is to forget what was, and to forget what might be; all this to accept what is, even if it now may exist in some other world. One different than what we left behind. Perhaps better, that way-
“But you never answered my question.”
“Hmm?”
“About the woman.”
“Oh, you wanted a name, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Her name is Guadalupe.”
There was once requiem before these cycles of violence
Solace in stars long fallen from her mantle.
Home was gone, family was gone, the mother tongue was gone.
And the future too, nearly gone.
Perhaps I misspoke. Made misjudgments when I should have listened to simple joys and curiosity. Let me explain.
Rosalia has just returned from her first winter youth camp. A week of youth activities with the community here; skiing, animal learning, crafts. I cannot say if she really liked it all, or if she would do it all again. I cannot say if this place speaks to her on some deeper level, or if it will strike her as home does to some in silent stares. I’m sure it can, but of course we will never know her whole story.
Yes, we push some of our things on her. The old things. We try in moments to hold onto that thread of familiarity in the grandest space of unfamiliarity. In movement. In parenthood. In spruce.
Brother and mother continue to work on the tamales. Soon I will attempt a salsa recipe passed down but now halfremembered. And it will ultimately become something new, something different. What that should be called I cannot say. Some will be the same, and some will be different. But this one family will all gather together and share it around the table, and tomorrow they will wake to continue moving through the world. And I will forget and laugh as I see Rosalia’s brother take left-over lime slices to suck them dry, unphased by their acidic content. Rosalia will wince, and I will smile to see these new innerworkings of a continuing home.
To salvage the future was work
What had this land brought to them but misery, toil, and vice?
It consumed her family, her children-
Heroína claimed her brother in form and void
Cocaína took her son in gunshots, beneath the electric dreams of alleyways
Alcohol left stains on her daughter’s skin.
It would have been so easy for me to believe this land had destroyed us completely. So easy to see only worn hands that lacked familiarity to work with. No comal. These words return to me as ghosts. No, less than that, a nameless impression of dreams. Without description, without form. I do not remember what could have been said to exist, and what I have been said to create. It is like this: I am the last to remember the little mornings (in which King David used to sing), to mumble words to that most famous song, our most famous songand yet I am the mother to carry our small seeds on new winds
For how do impressions speak to us, if not in half remembered little mornings?
They came looking for only one thing: safety for their children.
Many will now claim pride, nationality, banderas.
But those with worn hands know only how to create.
Not to speak vainly of empty things.
Rosalia will soon leave again as the world becomes more of her own. I cannot predict what shape that will take. It starts with summer camp; it ends with monthly phone calls for an hour. What then will be carried of 1000 years within us? Sometimes I despair. But sometimes she talks of other things, of other worlds. She asks questions of what lies beyond these patient spruce, beyond the Alaska range. From lands of snow. Through rivers and mountains, to jungle, to desert. To lands of clay. She asks me all this as she does now, about stories of people that left their homes behind in fear. She even says perhaps one day she will meet those people. She says she will speak their world and see their companion sun. Or perhaps I have imagined all this. All because I want to believe. Perhaps it is all just babble, the dreams of what only a child knows. Maybe these are passing ideas that pass their way onto a cluttered fridge. I am tired. It is enough to make an old woman want to sleep. An old woman with tired eyes. Fluttering, fading, drooping. Eyes. Los ojos. Ixtli. Like my grandmother. Estas palabras son mías. I remember. Lágrimas, their silent fall. The waving figure in passing dust. I remember that look. I see it follow a child’s eyes, crying in the dark. I see the small progression of things.
She watched her eyes disappear from the back of a truck that went onto sandit wasn’t hope then, something different. There could be no kept promises here just verdant curiosity in eyes that since birth searched the corners of rooms they could never see she saw something new, lost to her and her own, to suffer for some undefinable certainty, we will call it hopebut hope she would never know. there is such purpose we carry, en movimiento.
“She looks sad.”
“Yes, she does.”
“Why does she look that way abuela?”
“Because her children have suffered so mija. Because so many of them have been lost to her. So many have never known her love, not even her name. So many of them have wandered aimlessly, lost alone into darkness and sand. So many who do not know who they are, who they were, where they came from. They never knew her world, the world that was torn away from them. And they never knew her voice.”
She pauses, unsure what to say, I am sure that I have said too much now— I know it. There it is again. That frown, a growing grimace. Por qué? Why must we only know one another through pain? What if we instead we asked, what have they done? What would they do next?
“Look again to her eyes Rosalia.”
She is silent still.
What would she do next?
“Can you see it there? Patience, endurance.”
She pulls hard on her curly black hair.
Then she lets go.
For the first time I can see their resemblance.
“It is her strength. It is your strength too.”
Janet Klein
Alex's Eyes, Self-Portrait
Judi Nyerges
How I Found My Spirit Companion
Long before I was as I am now, when I was young and walked on two legs instead of three, I found myself on a dark path through deep woods. I looked up and saw Raven-the-Trickster coming my way.
“Traveler! Where are you going here on my path?” Raven asked.
“I don’t know, Brother Raven,” I answered. “I don’t know.”
“I see you are carrying a satchel full of sadness and woe,” Raven said. “Shall I show you all the paths from here which lead to happier places? Colors and Joy? A heart filled with love?”
Knowing Raven’s Trickster nature as I did, I knew he would only show me paths that led to his happiness. I declined, saying I was better off seeking my own.
“But the woods are dark and night is coming,” Raven replied in his smooth, seductive voice, as he skipped along beside my feet. “How will you find your way?”
“I will light a lantern,” I replied.
“Ah, but do you have a match?”
I admitted I did not. Raven-the-Trickster cackled, then stopped. He closed his eyes in thought.
“I have it,” he cried, those beady black eyes now a-twinkle with glee. “I will fly to the sky and steal Moon for you. Moon will light your way to happiness.” As he talked, he hopped from foot to foot and flapped his shimmering blue-black wings.
“That would be lovely,” I said. “But I have nothing to give you in return.”
‘Oh, I’ll think of something,” he cackled, winked and cawed as he rose above the treetops. When he returned, he held in his long, sharp beak a glittering object, shiny and silver.
“Here,” he said. “I’ve brought you the moon, just as I promised. The beautiful moon in trade for your steadfast love and youthful heart.”
I looked, but saw only glass – a small round mirror. “See?” he said. “Here is Moon; the Face of the Crone”.
“Raven. You Trickster! You promised me the moon to shine me a path to happiness. That is not the moon. It’s just her face reflected in a mirror.”
Quick as lightening, I grabbed Raven by his legs and stuffed him into my bag.
“Wait!” cried Raven. “Can’t we talk? Maybe make a deal?”
“Oh, Raven. You broke your promise. How can I trust you?”
“Just give me another chance,” pleaded The Trickster from the bottom of my satchel. His shifty black eyes filled with large, wet tears.
“Very well,” I agreed. “But, here are my terms. No more tricks. You must catch the moon and bring her to me. If you can’t you must free me from any promises I made to you. Also, you must always stay by my side as my silent Spirit Guide. And I will NOT give you my young heart.”
“Oh, very well.” he grumbled.
I dug him out of the bottom of my bag and set him down by a rain puddle in the path. In its center gleamed the silver face of Moon, full and bright against the stars in the velvet night sky.
Jan Tervonen
Mood Shine III
“Easy pickin’s” Raven-the-Trickster thought. He smirked as he reached his long, inky beak down to pluck up the moon. But Moon just shivered and quivered and stayed where she was.
“Agh!” Raven cried, and tried again. Three times Raven tried to pluck up Moon, but each time she broke into a million sparkling moon-beam pieces, then reassembled herself to smile up at him.
Try as he might, Raven could not pick up Moon. I laughed as he hopped from foot to foot, sputtering in frustrated anger as he realized he’d been beaten at his own game. Finally he stopped hopping and glared up at me.
“Very well, Traveler,” he rasped as he flew up and hovered above my head. “You win. You are released from your promises and may continue on your journey. However, I do NOT pledge my noble, majestic self to you. Instead you shall have my sassy, bossy, squawky, talky little Brother. I am Raven-the-Trickster, I fly free, and I will have the last laugh.”
And that’s how I came to have Crow, Raven-the-Trickster’s clever, noisy little brother, as my forever Spirit Companion.
Mr. Warner
In the wedding picture above mom’s desk at the Badger Store, the Old Man had a cocky grin on his face like he’d just won a raffle. I always wondered what happened to that look. Tall, with dark curly hair and a powerful chest and long arms, he was tempestuous and impulsive and had a mean streak all his life. Despite the dark side I learned about early, where he would get to cussing and swinging his fists, I want to say right here that he did me some good.
My grandma said mom’s great-great-aunt Sarah pushed a hand cart across the prairie in a long caravan that followed Brigham Young. I learned early the Old Man was from such a family too. They were part of a migration of Mormons out of Idaho into Interior Alaska before the War. My Aunt Pat came up first, and then she recruited him. One of my earliest memories is from being at some Mormon baptisms. We walked down into a concrete basement where there was dunk tank with bearded men standing behind it. Well, it was a real complete immersion thing going on that day, with who I thought was the preacher pulling up one unlucky kid after another out of the depths and shouting in the kid’s face: “Do YOU BELIEVE? DO YOU BELIEVE?”
If the kid was slow to answer, down into the depths again. It scared the bejeezus out of me, and I wondered if the tank had a bottom, or did you fall into hell through it if you didn’t get the answer right on the third time. My mom was already ahead in her dark blue holiday dress watching the kid in front of me, and the Old Man stood by my side, wearing a jacket with snaps over his khaki work shirt.
“I don’t want to go under.”
He looked down at me.
“You don’t have to go under.”
And that was the end of it. I have no memory of that concrete basement ever again. But there were other good things the Old Man did. Like that fine September day, with the sun peaking between clouds rushing by, when he took off his bloody apron in the butcher shop and walked me out onto the fens a mile or so behind the store, where we got into a flock of sharp tail grouse. The ground was soft and spongy, like walking on a squishy carpet, and yellowing tamaracks stood on higher ground surrounded by reddened blueberry and cranberry bushes. The Old Man was ahead of me, carrying a twelve-gauge Winchester repeating shotgun resting in the crook of his arm, while staring ahead under the bill of his blue hat like he could see all the way across to the other side of lakes reflecting the clouds. Resting in the crook of mine was a single shot .410 shotgun, the kind with a hammer you had to cock with your thumb.
As we walked along, grouse flushed from beneath the branches of berry bushes into the tops of the trees. The first roar of their beating wings always made me want to chase after them, but the sharp tails that flushed were smart enough to sail a ways away before setting down again. We passed by a big tamarack with one perched in the very top, clucking right at us. I realized the Old Man was leaving it for me, and stopped to cock the .410 and point it skyward. When the grouse toppled over and bounced off the bright yellow limbs to hit the red and green tundra at my feet, I grabbed it by the neck and held its bloody head aloft to show the Old Man, like it was a real trophy. Blood trickled down my arm.
Doug Pope
Oh yeah, I’ve always thought, the Old Man did me good that day.
Soon I got to go by myself with the .410 in the fall whenever I wasn’t needed around the store, but shooting sharp tails or spruce hens out of a scraggly tree on the edge of a blueberry bog isn’t very complicated. So, I turned my attention to hunting the sloughs draining the fens into the Chena River. Belly crawling through tall rye grass growing right up to the edges where widgeons and mallards and green winged teal dipped for greens off the bottom, the grass above already turning gold like what I imagined wheat looked like, with grain so heavy they had to hold each other up, I’d try to keep the .410 dry by holding it in both hands while pulling ahead on my elbows. When I got close enough, I’d cock the hammer with the thumb of my right hand while cupping my left over it to keep the click quiet, and jump up so they would rocket straight up off the water. Just before they veered off one direction or another, one always seemed to pause for a heartbeat, and I had learned that was when to take the shot. The part I liked best though wasn’t the shooting, although that was fun, but inching my head forward through the grass to where I could get my first real glimpse of the black glassy surface between the heads of rye right at the edge of the pond. When I saw bare ripples widening out from the grass, I knew a dipping duck didn’t realize I was only feet away.
I can still see those ripples in my mind. But that’s getting ahead of things, because it leaves out a whole lot, including that it was Mr. Warner who actually taught me to shoot. And that was another good thing the Old Man did, never saying a thing when he learned I was sneaking off to Mr. Warner’s log cabin after the gas pumps went dark. Mr. Warner was tall with grey hair, wore green whipcord pants with red suspenders, and cooked on a wood range. His first name was Robert, but I never called him that. It would have been like me calling my grandpa Fred.
Older brother Phil never went to his cabin, even though Mr. Warner knew a lot about hunting and fishing. When Phil wasn’t thawing a water line out in one of the trailers or helping the Old Man on his latest project, or in town playing basketball or baseball, he lay on his bed in the corner we shared above the Badger Store, the room the Old Man had never finished, which even then only had a single light bulb hanging down on a wire. He’d read books about Alaska or magazines from the magazine rack, until whoever was working the cash register pressed the button for the ringing bell three times.
The Old Man had set up the ringing bell. Even then it seemed like some kind of a weird joke. The bell was upstairs in our kitchen, but the button for ringing it was downstairs under the counter next to the cash register. One ring was for the Old Man. Two was for mom. Three rings meant Phil. Four rings meant me, but everyone pushing the button for me seemed to lose track, and start to think about something else and forget their finger was pushing the button. The bell just kept ringing and ringing and ringing until I showed up to pump gas or diesel, or weigh a moose quarter that was going into the walk-in freezers the Old Man had just built. I’d sprint out of my room, or jump up from the kitchen table, leap off the top of the stairs, my hands on the rails and elbows stiff while sliding down with my knees up by my chin like I was skiing down a steep bank, and it just seemed natural to keep running once I hit the ground floor. It was one of those times the Old Man started calling me Speed. My mom told me once I had a restless mind, and I always wondered if that was why.
One thing that always floors me is that the Badger Store was really meant for Uncle Tommy and his wife. The Old Man and Uncle Dick and Uncle Earl bought the land and built the store and rental cabins for them. The idea was Tommy and his wife would get a fresh start in Alaska, and they would pay everyone back over time out of what the store and rentals earned. They showed up from Idaho in early September. It was one of those warm Septembers that only comes along every five years or so. They’d never seen a real Alaska winter. By Thanksgiving the sun had slid to where it was laying along the horizon, and the thermometer on the fuel shed said it was thirty-five below. Uncle Tommy called on the party line and said his wife had just left on a Pan-Am flight back to the States. He promised to stay on but he was gone in another week. So, in the middle of winter mom and the Old Man moved us out to an apartment in the back of the Badger Store, because someone had to keep it from freezing up.
The Old Man took to improving things right off. First it was a trailer court, and then the liquor store, followed by the butcher shop and then separate cold storage units and then making sausage out of reindeer from Nome. Phil called it the “Old Man’s compound.” It started crowding close to the spruce and cottonwood trees around Mr. Warner’s log cabin, where he’d been living since before we showed up in the middle of winter, so I guess it was natural he would be curious and ask questions every time he stopped for gas in his green Ford. One day he opened the pickup door and stepped out to watch while I had the cap off and was gripping the nozzle with the spout pushed in, watching the numbers spin
around on the pump like what I imagined happened with a slot machine. Mr. Warner pinched his lips and squirted some dark brown snoose out onto the gravel pad.
“Can you hit a bullseye?” I asked.
He retrieved a can of Copenhagen from his back pocket, tapped on it with two fingers, pulled off the lid, gouged out a finger’s worth, and put it under his lower lip.
“Probably. Never tried. It’s a nasty habit.”
He put the Copenhagen can back in his hip pocket, and I turned my attention back to the gas spout. When I thrust my face closer, Mr. Warner cleared his throat. When I turned my head, he gave me a worried look.
“Your face is so close to that spout, you’d think you were tryin’ to get a whiff of those fumes.”
I jerked my head back and pretended to look at the spinning numbers again.
“Nah, I just was listenin’ for the gas coming up in the neck.”
But that’s exactly what I had been doing. Just a couple of whiffs to get a little dizzy. It’s something I hadn’t let on to anyone, even Phil who was already sneaking beers. One day I whiffed so much my mouth tasted like gas and my head spun around, so I kept promising myself I’d quit, but I kept getting a whiff when I could.
That winter I started going over to Mr. Warner’s log cabin. It had something to do with him coming back from Tennessee with burlap bags full of pecan nuts. He showed me the bags in the bed of his pickup while I was pumping gas, and when he went inside to pay in silver dollars and quarters and pennies, he asked my mom if I could come over for toasted pecans. When I showed up at his cabin, he pulled a bag out from under his bed. It was so full you could see the outline of the pecan shells through the burlap.
“Reach into this croaker sack,” he said.
I grabbed a fistful of pecans and he handed me a pair of pliers to crack them with, and a screw driver to pry the halves apart. I got the hang of it after a few failed attempts. While we toasted the halves on the flat surface of his wood range, he told a story about a hunt in Tennessee, where he tricked a buck into moving out of some brush, and another about a hunt in Montana, where his hunting friend made a long shot to kill a bull elk. I’d seen a picture of a deer in the Encyclopedia Americana my mom kept in the apartment, but I’d never seen a picture of an elk, and I asked him what they looked like. He reached for a hunting magazine on top of a wooden Blazo box he’d nailed sideways to a log as a bookshelf.
“Here’s a picture of an elk head mounted.”
I had imagined them as just a smaller moose, like the size of a yearling, and got excited about the antlers in the photo, because they looked more like a caribou’s.
“It says here this is an Olympic Elk. Is that in Montana?”
“No, those’re Roosevelt Elk from the Olympic Peninsula in Washington. I’ve hunted there too, but that’s another story.”
More hunting stories were told over the next few visits, and then one evening Mr. Warner read out loud from one of his books. He pulled it out of the wooden Blazo box, and laid it on a round table draped with a blue and white checkered cloth.
“Time for some Jack London.”
The book he read from was called Burning Daylight. The name came from a character on the Yukon, who kept saying in a loud voice “we’re burning daylight” when men were standing around a wood stove in the middle of winter rather than getting stuff done outside. In the book a bunch of miners in Circle City were complaining about the mail being held up. It came down the frozen Yukon River on dogsled from Canada after going over Chilkoot Pass, but it was fifty below and in the very darkest part of winter, so the mail was stuck eight hundred miles away in a post office in southeast Alaska. After the Daylight character had his fill of the complaining, he put a poke of gold on a bar and bet he could mush a dog team there and bring back the mail, all within a month. Two other men agreed to go with him. Mr. Warner showed me on a map the way from Circle to Skagway, and read from Burning Daylight for the next several visits. I liked the parts about the days on the trail starting five hours before daylight, because of how long it took the mushers to get ready, and how they just kept going day after day.
On another visit, we were waiting on an eclipse of the moon to appear when Mr. Warner opened another book and shoved it across the table.
“It’s your turn to read.”
He’d opened the book to “To Build a Fire,” and asked me to read aloud. For the next hour, between rushing out to see if the eclipse was in progress yet, I read slowly about the prospector who froze to death after he’d fallen in an overflow because he couldn’t keep a fire going, trying to imagine what it was like being so cold you felt hot, while Mr. Warner toasted more pecans and made ice cream from packed snow, evaporated milk, and vanilla.
Mr. Warner’s cabin was small, and I often sat on the corner of his bed he had made himself out of spruce poles with a hand saw, chisels, and a draw knife. Hanging on hand carved wooden pegs over the head of the bed were a .45-70 caliber Springfield Trooper’s carbine, left over from what Mr. Warner said were the Indian wars, and a .50 caliber Sharps buffalo rifle with an octagon barrel and a long-range brass eyesight that you adjusted by twisting a little brass knob between your thumb and forefinger. One day Mr. Warner sat on the side of the bed oiling the action and barrel of the Trooper’s carbine with a cotton rag, and I practiced raising and lowering the mechanical sight on the Sharps while trying to squint down the octagon barrel. The Sharps was heavy, and Mr. Warner watched me rest the barrel on the post at the foot of the bed while fiddling with the brass knob. He cleared his throat and spit snoose into an empty can.
“You can hit a moose a mile away if you turn the knob to the right place and hold the rifle steady.”
He talked more about trajectory, elevation, and windage, while I kept trying to imagine even seeing a moose a mile away in the adjusted sights. But the Sharps was too heavy, and I eventually quit fiddling with it and turned my attention to the Trooper’s carbine. I could manage to get it to my shoulder, and steady it with my opposite hand and arm, as long as I anchored my elbow into my upper chest.
In the spring, while there was still packed snow on the ground, the Old Man was ranting by the cash register about the Territorial Legislature passing a law to set up an election about Statehood. Mr. Warner stopped, and after I pumped his gas, he went inside to pay. He stood at the counter, and listened to the Old Man going on about crooks, but didn’t say anything. I wondered to myself who the crooks were, and did any of them live on Badger Road. When my mom came out, Mr. Warner asked her if he could take me out to practice shooting. She looked at me for a while before nodding.
Mr. Warner showed me how to squeeze the trigger on the Trooper’s carbine rather than jerk on it, which wasn’t the easiest thing when I kept anticipating it to buck like a horse when it recoiled from the .45-70 brass cartridge going off. It would knock my shoulder around so far it put my body into a twist. When Mr. Warner saw me flinch for the third time, he laughed and said we’d use .410 shotgun shells rather than the all brass .45-70. They fit slick as a whistle, but some people now would say that was crazy. The Trooper’s carbine was a breech-loader with a flip up trapdoor for removing the cartridge, and a shell even just a little bit smaller than the .45 caliber bore might recoil hot gasses out the trapdoor. I knew nothing about that. I was thrilled to be shouldering a big rifle with a hammer you had to cock back, just like my .410.
Well, the plan about shoving .410 shells into the Trooper’s carbine also meant I was shooting birdshot instead of a slug. I learned some things from this, because the pattern of shot coming out of the carbine’s muzzle wasn’t at all even. In fact, many more pellets were in the left side of the pattern. It was plain as day when I fired at a piece of weathered plywood I had set up on a stump. There’d maybe be twenty or thirty pieces of shot on the left side but only the six or seven pieces on the right. At first, I figured it would be tough for a bird or squirrel to dodge those, so I just sighted right down the barrel. Mr. Warner laughed out loud when I first tried to knock down a spruce hen that way. I cocked the hammer with both thumbs, raised the carbine with my left hand cupped under the forward stock, buried my left elbow into my chest to keep it steady, found the spruce hen in the sight, and squeezed. The butt bucked and a puff of smoke came out the end of the barrel that drifted away, and when I could see clear again the spruce hen still sat on the same spruce limb it had been sitting on the whole time. I flipped open the breech, used my fingernails to pull out the spent .410 shell, shoved a live one in, closed the breech, cocked the hammer, and raised it for a second time. When the smoke cleared again, the spruce hen hadn’t moved a twitch. This got me to keeping my left eye on the spruce hen and my right eye to look down the barrel. Mr. Warner said that it was a good thing I was learning to use both eyes to shoot rather than squinting with one.
In mid-June, shooting lessons were over and grayling were in the sloughs coming out of the fens. Mr. Warner stopped and invited me to go on a river trip with him and a woman named Emma. He asked my mom of course, and told her he and Emma were going up the Salcha River. Mom said the Badger Store could get by without me for a few days. People weren’t needing diesel or propane, and it would be a couple more weeks before the first king salmon from Rampart showed up. I’d paddled an old canvas covered kayak I found along a clear slough coming out of the fens, what
Smitty called a muskrat boat, but I’d never been in a real boat on a river. And, what I knew about the Salcha was that a narrow bridge crossed it an hour or so drive out of Fairbanks. It was the kind of bridge with steel girders overhead, and the bridge was so narrow it made me feel like we were driving into a tunnel. It had been there as long as I could remember, and what I remembered most was people leaning over the steel girders alongside the roadway, so many of them cars had to slow down, and snagging king salmon out of water the color of Lipton tea with big treble hooks at the end of long cords and ropes.
On the way to the tunnel that was a bridge, I sat on the pickup seat between Mr. Warner and Emma with one foot on each side of the floor shift. I wore a cotton t-shirt and had tennis shoes on my feet. Emma wore a wool shirt and had tied her braids in a circle around her head. She leaned over toward the dash to turn her head and talk past me to Mr. Warner. She wanted to talk about Statehood and whether it was a good thing. Emma was for it. Mr. Warner wasn’t so sure. Not really having anything to add other than the Old Man was against it, I kept pushing up with the toes of my tennis shoes so I could see over the dash. The pickup broke out of the trees and we saw a clear, deep, slow-moving creek in front of a rocky bluff. Somebody had painted Jill on the steep part in white. When Mr. Warner noticed me squirming to look, he put up his gear shifting hand to stop the talking about Statehood, and Emma fell quiet.
“That’s Moose Creek Bluff. Before the War, engineers from Fairbanks decided to dynamite it. When they started clearing trees and brush off at the bottom of the face, they noticed some paintings of figures on the rock, so they brought in an anthropologist from up at the college.”
“What kind of figures?” I asked.
“Kind of like stick figures. Some were standing in a boat. Some were two feet high.”
“Who painted the rocks?”
“Probably some of the Indians that used to live around here.”
I pushed up again to get another look at the bluff, but what stood out was the painted name of the girl.
“Can we stop and see them?”
Emma sighed and turned her head to look the other direction.
“No. After the anthropologist made a drawing of each one, the engineers blew up the face for rock for the Chena’s banks.”
I wanted to ask more questions. Where did the Indians come from? Where did they go? Why were they painting figures on the bluff? What did they use to paint with? But I had gotten used to when my mom or the Old Man stopped paying attention because I started asking a lot of questions, so I decided to just think about them. If they were in a boat, how did they make it? Like the kayak I had found in the tall grass by the slough, with canvas nailed to lashed together willows? And if they were in a boat, did that mean they floated down the creek into the muddy Tanana River? I kept wondering over and over about the paintings until another bluff came into view, and then the steel bridge that looked like a tunnel, and I realized Mr. Warner was talking to Emma about different Indians.
“An Indian village was just downriver where the Salcha runs into the Tanana. It was there for many years, even after prospectors showed up here in the Interior. I figure for hundreds of years they were able to spear kings that just happened to be taking a rest in a pool just down from the bridge, after those kings had swum a thousand miles up from the mouth of the Yukon.”
Emma rolled down the window to look out and I tried to look around her to see if there were any signs of a village. When I didn’t see anything but birch trees I turned back to Mr. Warner.
“What kind of spear?”
“An old-timer told me they sharpened the tips of caribou or moose antler, and lashed them onto the end of a spruce pole.”
“How did they sharpen the antlers?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe ground them on a boulder?”
I had seen big kings hauled out on rope or dragged ashore on a gravel bar right below the bridge.
“How did they lift one out?”
“That’s a good question. How would you do it?”
I couldn’t think of a way. After we drove through the tunnel that was a bridge, the Salcha Lodge appeared on the left. It had also had been there as long as I could remember, and really got a lot of business when people were busy
snagging kings from the bridge. A boat landing had been plowed out of gravel next to the lodge, and a riverboat with an Evinrude outboard hanging off the back waited for us with its bow resting on the beach. A friend of Mr. Warner’s named Jim owned the boat, which he said he’d built from wood planks. Jim was fiddling with a long handle on a contraption in front of the outboard when we showed up. He called the contraption a lift, and demonstrated while saying he could push down on the handle and the Evinrude would lift straight up, instead of tipping like most outboards do, and sure enough it did. He said he could lift it up so the prop wouldn’t hit the gravel or mud bottom. That was the first thing I learned about river trips. You can get a contraption that means you don’t have to tip up the motor. The next thing, after the boat was loaded and we were heading upriver, was what a sweeper is. It didn’t take a lot of imagination when the riverboat sped by the tops of trees leaning over the banks. The last thing, and Mr. Warner wasn’t too happy about this, is that you can’t get both feet stuck deep in the mud while you’re wearing hip boots, and somehow think it’s going to work out to slip your feet out of the boots one foot at a time.
I realized much later that Mr. Warner’s idea was to expose me to camping on gravel bars, and maybe to seeing what it was really like to cast for grayling that’d never seen a mosquito made of grey and white feathers. That was back before spinning reels and rods showed up in the Interior, and there were only two options for kids. The first was a fly rod, which involved learning to peel line off the reel with one hand, while using your other hand and arm and shoulder in a backand-forth motion with the rod to send the fly and its leader and line to drift across the air until the fly lit on the surface and the line draped in after. Or, a casting rod with a spoon, which was much simpler. All you had to do was whip the rod around once, not even using your shoulder, but the key to avoiding disaster was keeping your thumb on the reel as the spoon was leading the line out through the air, because when the turns of the reel got too fast, the line snarled into what Phil called a backlash. I had already learned trying for lake trout and pike that the casting reel and rod were a calamity for me, because I spent most of his time trying to unsnarl the backlashed line that had wrapped like a net around the reel. So, it was a fly rod I had been fishing with, one made of brass sections that telescoped out and with a butt wrapped in cork. The Old Man had bought two of them on sale at Anderson’s Variety in downtown Fairbanks. One for Phil, and one for me. And, two reels also made of brass. Phil’s face had no expression when the Old Man pulled the rods and reels out from under the kitchen table. Phil had long before mastered the casting reel, and bragged he could get a spoon out way beyond where a fly would land. I took to the brass fly rod. No matter how many times I laid it down in the silt or sand to string the line or grab a fish, it always telescoped in and out. And, I loved how the spool of the reel ticked like a clock when the line played out.
I had the brass telescoping rod with me when I walked away from the gravel bar in Mr. Warner’s hip boots, headed toward a big hole in the muddy riverbank. Mr. Warner said the Salcha had gouged out the hole during a big flood when the river was a lot higher. A narrow channel led through the hole into a long curving lake with spruce and birch leaning in along all sides. Mr. Warner told me I should try to get to the lake. The water was so clear I could see exactly where the shallow water of the channel fell off into the deep dark water of the lake. The air was perfectly still. I had only just learned to tie the loops of the hip boots around my belt, but I hadn’t then because I was wearing them like Mr. Warner, with the tops rolled down to the knee, even though my feet bounced off the insides.
I walked into the shallow channel, edged up to where it fell off, and cast a grey mosquito fly into the air. A grayling hit the first cast and I played it for a few minutes. I always loved getting my hand under a grayling. If it was flopping out of the water, I always wet my hand first, because I’d read in one of the fishing magazines on the magazine rack at the Badger Store that you were supposed to. What I never tired of looking at was the iridescent glow of their sides when they first came out of the water. Iridescent is the first big word I remember learning from my mom, and it was she who showed me how I could turn a grayling just a little in the light so the glow would go from purple to violet.
But I stood in the water and not on the shore, so I had to tire the fish out before I could cup my hand underneath it with one hand while holding the rod in the other. It was a nice grayling, almost three times as long from the tip of my thumb to the tip of my little finger. It was then I realized the hip boots had settled into the mud a bit at the bottom of the shallow channel, and it seemed like too much effort to retreat to the beach when a grayling had hit the first cast, so I set the rod down into the water, unhooked the grayling, and dropped it into my left boot. A thought flashed through my mind that I would need to clean the scales off the inside before I returned the boots to Mr. Warner, and for some reason I believed the actual doing of that was something I could figure out on the way back to camp.
When I cast again, another grayling, even bigger than the first, hit the mosquito fly as soon as it dipped onto the
dark surface. Well, this was another kettle of fish you might say. The grayling ran and line peeled off the ticking reel so fast it sounded like a siren. My body twisted to keep up with the fish because my feet had settled into the mud a bit more. I lifted and pushed to break my feet free, but the grayling captured all my attention, and even though I kept lifting and pushing my feet like my legs were having a silent conversation, my arms and wrists were fighting the fish. The grayling eventually tired and came alongside my boot, and after I reached down to cup a hand under it, I tried pulling up with my right knee as hard as I could to free my foot so I could take a step back toward the beach. The boot didn’t move, but my foot did. So, I tried the other one, grasping the grayling like something I should never let go of while my mind was in my foot, trying to free the boot. The beautiful iridescent sides started to fade. So, I dropped it into my left boot.
The situation was I still had to get to the beach, with one foot in a stuck boot that had two grayling inside, and the other just in a stuck boot, and the boots weren’t coming out. Maybe I got confused, or maybe too excited, who can say, but anyway I decided to pull my right foot out of the boot and stand in the mud while I pulled that boot out with both hands. This was a problem too, because I still had the telescoping brass rod and brass reel in my hands. It was only ten feet or so to the edge of the water, so I tossed the rod with the reel toward it, and reached down with both hands to pull on the boot. It didn’t budge, and I decided to reach down and dig around the edges of the boot with my fingers so I could pry up one end. This required me to be on my knees, and I kneeled down thinking the rolled down top of the left boot would stay above the water, but it didn’t, and water flooded in, sucking silt in with it. At the same time, I’d let the right boot sink into the water. So, I stood up, right foot with a sock on in the mud, left foot still in the other boot, and tried to pull out my left foot. Now the two dead grayling, the biggest I had ever caught up till then, blocked my foot from coming up. So, I reached inside and pulled them out, one at a time, and tossed them toward the water’s edge. Out came my left foot, and I spent the next while calf deep in the water digging around the edges of the boots, while shifting my weight back and forth from one foot to the other so as not to get so stuck in the mud I’d have to holler for help. By the time I got both boots to the beach, the grayling floated belly up with their dorsal fins dragging in the mud below.
Well, you can imagine that Mr. Warner wasn’t very happy when I came back from my little fishing expedition. The boots were covered on the inside with wet silt, and you could see fish scales in the heel of the left one. Mr. Warner’s cheeks flushed red while Emma looked on and shook her head.
“Goddamn it, why’d you let that happen?”
While Emma nodded, Mr. Warner grabbed the boots, and dragged me by my hand to the water’s edge.
“Wash them out on the inside,” he said.
I did the best I could washing the boots, and turning them inside out, and propping them up to dry in the sun, but that was the end of me using them. When Mr. Warner didn’t tell one story about Indians all the way back to the Badger Store and Emma stayed silent, I thought that could be the end of it.
In July, my mom posted a notice behind the cash register that said the Badger Store would be a voting place for a special election that was supposed to happen in September. Phil and I were busy butchering gutted out king salmon that had been flown in from Rampart, and had sat way too long in a stinking fiberglass tub in the back of the store’s red panel truck. When I reached into a foul brew of blood, slime, and river water, and grabbed one red side of a king right behind the gills, my thumb pushed all the way through the soft flesh, and I had to grab with both hands to pull the fish over the side of the tub. A red handful broke off and the fish fell back into the foul brew with a splash, so I grabbed some manilla rope Phil had brought from the shop and tied it around the fish just in front of the broad, black tail. Phil helped me pull it over the side of the tub and onto a sheet of plywood, grabbed a hose, and handed it to me.
“We need to hose them down before we cut off the heads,” he said.
While I focused the spray on washing away the bloody slime, he walked around to the front of the truck to retrieve a butcher knife from the seat.
“What’s a special election?” I asked.
Phil was in the eighth grade, and knew more about what was going on.
“This one is about convincing people in the States we’re ready.”
“Ready for what?”
“Ready to be part of the States.”
“Isn’t dad against it?”
At that moment Smitty came around the corner of the store. Smitty and his wife lived in Cabin 1. He was bald on top, had a wrinkled forehead, his cheeks were veined, and his nose was as red as a rose hip. He helped around the place and took it out in pints from the liquor store. For some reason, the Old Man had decided it was better to keep Smitty half-drunk much of the time than to let him go on a bender.
“Sure, Fred’s against Statehood,” Smitty said, “but he’s talking about running in the election.”
“Why?” Phil asked. “Why would he do that?”
Smitty slapped his thigh with one hand and laughed like a loon.
“He says someone has to keep an eye on the crooks.”
Usually, everyone stopping for gas in July wanted to talk about how many ducks were in the sloughs coming out of the fens, or how good the crop of cabbages was out the road, or if any cow moose had been seen with calves, but everyone seemed to talk about the election in the store, and was the Old Man going to run so he could keep an eye on the crooks. I kept wanting to ask why were they crooks, and were some worse than others? But I knew better than to ask, especially when the Old started slapping the flat of his hand on the counter next to the cash register, because he’d got to the part where all the crooks should be in jail. Phil said all he did was talk, and I started to wonder why the Old Man really was against Statehood.
One day in August Mr. Warner asked my mom if I could go on a moose hunt, and I lost all interest in the special election. She told him there’d be time before the moose and caribou quarters started coming in. He said we’d go north this time on the Steese Highway.
“As far as Chatanika?” I asked.
I’d been to Chatanika, an old mining camp along the Chatanika River that was overgrown with alder, but still had a lodge that had turned all grey and had a big front porch with old-timers sitting in chairs.
“Further. Almost all the way to Circle City. Over the Forty Mile Hills. The big ones have tundra-covered tops so bald looking the first white men called them domes.”
I thought domes must look like Smitty’s wrinkled head, and looked for them after Mr. Warner’s pickup left behind the old mining town of Fox, where piles of mine tailings that had spilled out from the back of giant floating gold dredges gleamed yellow in the morning sun. I hadn’t really figured out yet that the mine tailings were evidence that floating dredges had destroyed whole valleys. For me, climbing the tailing piles was fun. Parts of ancient animals lay everywhere for the taking in the gravel and rocks brought up in the giant buckets, and I had already found bison bones and part of a mammoth molar with deep grooves from grinding food.
After Mr. Warner started double clutching to shift down, I knew we were climbing the gravel road toward Cleary Summit, where the ski hill was, and that would lead us back down along the Chatanika, where other gold dredges had mined the lowlands into hills of tailings between a series of ponds. The floating dredges were still there, the grey sided control towers looming above willows, and the bucket ladders and tailings stackers hanging off the fronts and backs with rusty cables. Mr. Warner rolled down his window and pointed to one while talking over my head to Emma.
“They turned idle during the war, and afterwards the price of gold had stayed frozen by the Democrats, so the dredges stopped and were as frozen as the ground and the price of gold.”
He kept shifting as the gravel road curved around, and I kept rising up in my seat trying to see around the split in the windshield, or past Emma who had the window open and her cupped hand fluttering in the wind. We dropped down a hill and around a curve and came to a spot where a big iron pipe sat propped up on timbers. Mr. Warner pulled over. The pipe was as big as I was tall, covered with rust. The timbers holding it up were grey and black. It started at the top of the hill we had just come down and went up to the top of the hill in front of us.
“This is the Davidson Ditch. It was built before the War to bring water to the dredging operations, and some of the
Tami Phelps
The Child is Father of the Man
steam shovels that worked on it were used to dig the Panama Canal.”
“How did the steam shovels get here from the Panama Canal?” I asked.
“By boat to Seward, and then train to Fairbanks, and then on trucks to here.”
“You mean trucks hauled steam shovels over Cleary Summit?”
“That’s what I do mean.”
After seeing Mr. Warner double clutching the pickup, I couldn’t imagine how a truck could haul a steam shovel over Cleary Summit. We drove on until we were close to the top of the next hill, and Mr. Warner pulled over again. He led us along a trail to the very top of the hill, and there a ditch full of fast-moving water flowed into the pipe going downhill. I looked down the pipe as it fell off into the valley and then rose up the hill on the other side. I’d never seen a roller coaster, but I imagined that’s what one looked like. Mr. Warner called it a siphon, only upside down, and said it crossed many valleys this way. The ditch part, where the water flowed in the open, was wider than I could jump across. There was no way I would dare it anyway, because of the rushing stream of water flushing down into a pipe that looked like a giant black toilet bowl, and sounded like one of those fighter jets that flew low over the Badger Store. I shuddered just looking at it, and had the same reaction every time afterwards I stood at that the same spot. A weathered shack with a rusty metal roof stood close to the giant black toilet bowl. Mr. Warner opened the door and pointed in where a hand crank telephone hung from the wall with a brass funnel to speak into and a black piece to hold up to your ear. He said before the dredges shut down the F. E. Company had men stationed every twenty miles, and had set up its own phone line so they could crank the phone if something had gone wrong with the ditch. I had never seen anything like the Davidson Ditch, and had never even heard about it, even though mom said the Old Man came to Alaska before the War to work on the gold dredges, and even though the Ditch was still running full of water that very day, while the dredges were as frozen as the price of gold, and I realized there was a lot I didn’t know about the place where I lived. We drove on toward the town of Central, and Mr. Warner said we were going on from there to Birch Creek where we would start hunting. But first we had to get over the two highest summits on the Steese Highway.
Mr. Warner pulled over as soon as the Ford pickup left the birch and cottonwood behind on its next climb. The Steese in those days wasn’t very wide, and most places birch and cottonwood and spruce crowded in from both sides. It was like a long tunnel of trees, and the only hilltops I could see rose above the trees at the other end of long straight stretches. What glimpses I got were of spruce covered hills, except where some hillsides were nothing but brush or green tundra. Mr. Warner said that was because those hillsides were on the north side of the hills, and didn’t get much light during the winter. That was the second time Mr. Warner taught me how to figure out where north was. The first was to look for lichen on the bark on one side of a spruce tree.
When the Ford pickup left the birch and cottonwood behind, I knew then we had entered a very different place. Spruce trees spread out like watchmen across a tundra covered hillside, and rows of hills streaked of green and gold unfolded away from us until they turned blue along the horizon. The higher the pickup climbed, and the more Mr. Warner double clutched, the further and further apart stood the watchmen, who were also getting shorter and shorter, until the hillside was all yellowing tundra with little patches of green brush here and there. I turned around in my seat and looked out the back window at the world falling away. And then we were on the top and could see summits and domes and smaller hills in all directions, with every horizon in every direction blurred blue, and not a road or cat trail in sight except for the Steese. Twelve Mile Summit. Elevation 3,190. Like every kid in school, I had learned that Alaska was way bigger than any of the states in the Lower 48, so I knew I lived in a big place, but that was the first time I felt, really felt, the great vastness of Alaska.
Twenty miles later the Ford pickup climbed over Eagle Summit, and for the first time we could see beyond the mountains and hills toward the Yukon River. Mr. Warner said we were nearly at 3,700 feet, and as we started down, he pointed out a line that was a different color of green. Birch Creek, winding first toward the Yukon and then alongside it. And then a view to our left opened up of a long line of rocky faces above yellowing slopes, all surrounded by a great green, which opened out even more in the north towards vast green flats where channels of a great river roamed. I’d seen pictures of giant sailing ships in the encyclopedia in our apartment, and the mountains made me think of yellow ships surrounded by a green sea. I pointed toward them.
“Those look crazy.”
Mr. Warner looked down and studied me.
“They’re called the Crazy Mountains.”
Well, Mr. Warner knew a lot about them too. He pointed out another ribbon of green that actually ran between the giant yellow sailing ships.
“The rocky bluffs on the far left of Preacher Creek are the West Crazy Mountains. The longer bluffs to the right of the creek are the East Crazies.”
I thought about the Crazy Mountains and the giant sailing ships all the way down into the great valley, and I thought of Birch Creek, winding like a green snake toward the Yukon. That night Mr. Warner set up camp on a rutted dirt road down to a slough that he said used to be the main channel of Birch Creek. On the banks of the slough sat an old roadhouse and a connected stable that had caught fire. The roof was still on but the windows were gone and the doors ajar and charred. Inside the old stable, leather horse collars, dried out and cracked with age, hung on wooden pegs, and inside the roadhouse a charred wooden bar still stood along one wall. Mr. Warner joked that it was where Dan McGrew got shot, and that night in the big tent we had pitched in some trees, I imagined the old roadhouse lit by kerosene lamps, and loud noise along the bar, while the Lady That’s Known as Lou sat quietly at a table by herself drinking whiskey from a glass.
In the morning, I got real confused when I walked away from the slough and came to a bank along Birch Creek. And then, I walked another direction and there was the river again. It was on one side of us and then on the other. Mr. Warner used a stick to draw a line in the dirt to show me how that could be.
“It’s called an ox-bow.”
He reminded me of the lake on the Salcha, which he called an ox-bow too. I thought back to the Salcha and was ready to get out my telescoping brass flyrod, but Mr. Warner said we were going to the bridge across Birch Creek. The bridge turned out to be another tunnel of steel, only the Birch Creek Bridge was longer, and instead of a lodge and people trying to snag fish from the bridge, an Athabascan family lived in two log cabins by the river next to the far end. The family had a homemade plank riverboat. I studied the fact that the Johnson outboard didn’t have a lift, while Mr. Warner hired two brothers to guide us up and down the river. Twenty miles upriver the first day, and twenty miles downriver the second.
The brothers were tall and lean and wore blue jeans and flannel shirts. They had chiseled faces and black hair and their skin was a lot darker than that of my Athabascan friend Freddie. I wondered if it was because they had been in the sun so much. The older one was named Joseph, and he did all the talking with Mr. Warner. The next two days for me involved a lot of sitting on a plank bench behind Mr. Warner and Emma, who rode up front keeping an eye out for moose. Eventually, I turned around so I could look to see where we had come from while the wooden boat streaked by gravel banks or birch and spruce overhanging the water. Joseph always had his hand on the throttle, and his chiseled face never changed expression.
It wasn’t until we were headed back upriver on the second day, after passing some bluffs, that we spotted anything. I was looking ahead rather than behind like I’d been doing most the day, and there on an island in the middle of the channel stood a cow moose. It seemed funny that she didn’t bolt right away when the prow of the river boat powered around a corner, and Joseph backed off on the outboard so the boat just hovered in the current downriver from the island. The cow faced upstream and didn’t even turn her head, so Joseph eased the bow onto a sandy spot on the downriver end of the island and we all hopped out. Emma and the other brother stayed behind while I followed Joseph and Mr. Warner as they approached the cow. Blood oozed from deep slashes on the cow’s right flank, and the rocks on the bar behind her were splattered red. Joseph told Mr. Warner a grizzly must’ve tried to drag the cow down from behind, and she escaped into the river. Perhaps the bear had heard the riverboat so it didn’t chase the cow onto the island, he said, and the bear could be right out there behind the wall of green leaves along the riverbanks on either side of us. That set me to wondering if a bear was going to come running out at any moment, so I started trying to peer between the leaves to see if a bear was looking out, but I kept listening closely to Joseph talk to Mr. Warner. The bear is going to come back and take this cow, Joseph said, unless we shoot it now and load it in the boat. But we can’t, Mr. Warner said, because it isn’t legal to kill cows. Joseph showed his first real change of expression when he wrinkled his forehead.
“The government man never comes around,” he said.
By this time, they were standing right next to the cow, which looked like it was only shivering and cocking its head a little, and Joseph had rested his left hand on the front haunch of the cow, so I stepped closer and put my hand on it too,
"You
away from the oozing grooves at the other end, and felt it shiver. It never even turned its head to look at us. I didn’t know it just then but the conversation was over. Mr. Warner turned to walk back to the riverboat, and Joseph walked step by step at his side, neither saying anything. I stood there while they walked away, feeling the cow tremble, and then walked back behind them while trying to peer into the green leaves to see anything brown or black. The boat was getting up on step as we passed the cow shivering on the bar, and I imagined the bear would come from the side of the river the cow was facing away from.
We pulled down the tent the next afternoon, and I took one last walk down to where Mr. Warner had pretended Dan McGrew met his fate. I fingered the rotting horse collars, thinking about taking a souvenir from the Forty Mile Hills, but then thought of a reason they should stay. I was awake while Mr. Warner double clutched over Eagle Summit, but it was still dark so I kept my eyes shut and wondered about things. Like what Joseph had said, that the government man never comes around. Where did the government man live? Why didn’t he ever come around? Was the moose still alive on the gravel bar, or had the bear come again to drag it down from behind? Why was the Davidson Ditch still running full of water when the dredges were silent? Were the Indians who painted the figures on the cliff at Moose Creek trying to tell a story, like making angels in the snow? Were they the same Indians that speared king salmon in the Salcha River? And had any Indian kids my age ever held onto a spruce pole with a speared king salmon on the other end? What would it be like to hold onto a spruce pole in the middle of the river while a big king struggled on the other end? It was all difficult to imagine. All that time, while my mind was jumping from one thought to the next, Mr. Warner and Emma talked almost in whispers, and there were long pauses between each one speaking, so I couldn’t quite keep up with what they were saying. But, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t about me.
On Twelve Mile Summit I opened my eyes, and the rays of a late August sunrise rested on the tops of the lonely spruce guards. I could see the tops of sunlit domes, like yellow sails of other great ships, and blue hills rolling on and on toward a brightening horizon, and wondered if Joseph and his brother knew that way must be to the edge of the universe. Just days before, when I first saw those same hills, I felt like I was soaring above them and the forest below. That’s how I’d felt when I looked down at the Crazy Mountains from Eagle Summit, like a bird floating above a giant ship on a vast sea of green. And that’s how I felt again at that moment going down from Twelve Mile Summit. Half-way down my mind skipped back to the burned-out roadhouse and bar and stable along the old channel of Birch Creek. The last thing I remember before falling asleep was the horse collar I left behind, so somebody could tell the Lady That’s Known as Lou had been by that way.
Josh Kleven
shall not pass" (after Balrog)
El Az Jayne Marek
PLAY
Daniel Penner Cline
Love Mosquitoes
ACT I
Scene 1
The following takes place in a bedroom containing a bed with cute matching bedside tables, a large slidingdoor closet, and a table on which sit framed wedding pictures. In one of the corners is a large chair on which a full suit, complete with shirt, tie, socks and shoes is meticulously laid out in a perfect person shape.
Lights are off. We hear a mosquito buzzing.
Then a slap.
WILLIAM Hmmmmngh. Another slap.
WILLIAM Mnnnnnggg. Dammit. (Silence.)
We hear another slap and more groans until William throws his covers aside. We hear footsteps across the stage. He turns the light on revealing Barbara sleeping and William standing by the light switch scanning for something in the air.
BARBARA (Half asleep.) Turn the light off.
WILLIAM Quiet. (He searches for the mosquito.)
BARBARA Go back to bed.
He spots the mosquito and takes a swipe. It flies away. He follows, jumping over the bed and stepping on Barbara.
BARBARA Ow! What are you doing?
WILLIAM There's a damn mosquito.
BARBARA Oh just ignore it.
WILLIAM
It's driving me- (He spots it again and, diving over the bed, kills it.) Ahhhh yes. (And walks triumphantly across the room, turning the lights off, and getting back in bed.)
Silence.
The sound of a mosquito, a groan, and a slap.
William throws the covers emphatically off the bed, stomps across the room and turns the lights on again.
BARBARA What now?
WILLIAM
There's another mosquito-oooohhh there you are He chases the mosquito into a corner and uses a table to get a little extra height as he swipes and misses. A picture frame or two falls over.
BARBARA (Now fully awake, Barbara turns her bedside lamp on.) Oh what are you-?
WILLIAM
I told you, there's a goddamn mosquito. You're the one who gets bit all the time. (Hunting it.) I'm trying to help you.
BARBARA (Annoyed but relaxing.) I don't mind much. Anyway I like to scratch them.
WILLIAM
Lovely. Maybe you could work something out with the godforsaken wretches so they would fly a bit quieter. That whining is driving me nuts.
BARBARA (Retrieving an Oprah magazine Barbara starts to read.) Don't you have to be up early?
WILLIAM
Yeah, thanks for reminding me. I actually forgot that I had to be up in …(Looking at the alarm clock.)…two hours. God damn it they're getting faster. I swear five years ago…Do they have some new technology? I mean what the…(Spotting it, he slaps, knows that he's got it between his hands, does a little prayer, then slowly opens his hands. The mosquito flies out unharmed.) Oh come on!! (He totally loses sight of it now.)
BARBARA
Maybe you're just getting slower. (Beat.) You know Buddhism says that if you kill sentient beings, even mosquitoes, you'll come back as one.
WILLIAM
I don't care. Right now, that sounds fair. Sentient or not.
BARBARA William.
WILLIAM
I'm serious I would come back as a mosquito if this one and his gaggle or flock or whatever the hell you call a pack of mosquitoes, would surrender. (Frantically looking.) Christ where is it? He must have a cloaking device or …man he's a stealthy son of a bitch.
As William says his last line, Barbara's eyes follow the mosquito down to where it lands between the folds of her magazine, which she slaps shut, killing it with very little effort.
BARBARA
Oh, sorry little guy. (She flicks it off the page.)
WILLIAM
What the hell was that?
BARBARA
The mosquito. Got him. (Beat.) What?
14 No. 2
WILLIAM
That whole thing about the Buddha coming back and turning you into a mosquito.
BARBARA I asked Christ to forgive me.
WILLIAM I don't think that's how it works. (He turns the lights off.)
BARBARA Yeah, I read it in last month's Oprah.
WILLIAM Right. Whatever. Thank you Jesus. Thank you Buddha. Oprah, you da man. (William climbs in bed while Barbara continues reading.) I've got to get some sleep. Huge day at work tomorrow. The boss has been…(Mumbles as he falls asleep.) God I hate mosquitoes.
After William settles in Barbara starts crying but tries to hold it in. It builds over several seconds and sounds like a mosquito. William, half asleep, makes a big slap in her direction.
BARBARA Aaaaaahhhhoowww!!
WILLIAM Jesus I thought you were a- (Beat.) Are you crying?
BARBARA
Oh, go to sleep William. (Grabbing a tissue.) It's just that time of the month.
WILLIAM
Was it the mosquito? (Comforting her, but tired. He moves closer, giving her a tender kiss on the cheek.) They only live like two days anyway and you know they're the third most abundant life form on the planet.
BARB No, it's not the …really the third?
WILLIAM Yeah, right behind pesky little ants and, (Poking her in the ribs.) other in-laws.
BARBARA (Smiling for a second, then redoubling her sobs and reaching for several more tissues.) Oooohhh! That's what I'm talking about!
WILLIAM What? You're not talking about anything.
BARBARA We're so…blah blah
WILLIAM Blah- What?
BARBARA
Yes. You having to get up early for the job. Me reading in bed quoting Christo…Buddish…stuff. You making stupid in-law jokes and being annoyed by mosquitoooooooes. (Hugging him.) I'm sorry. I like your stupid in-law jokes and our in-laws are stupid. But I…I hate it because I like them.
WILLIAM
What, our in-laws?
BARBARA No.
WILLIAM
You like the mosquitoes?
BARBARA
No, the jokes. I like your stupid stupid jokes! (She punctuates each "stupid," with a blast from the pillow.)
WILLIAM
Good god where's this coming from Barbara? (Beat.) Is this what you were crying about when I found you locked in the pantry last week? What's going on with you lately? You were eating marshmallows and swigging off a bottle of syrup. (To himself.) You said that was that time of the month too.
BARBARA
That actually was, but yes that's what it was about. I mean, Aunt Ja-friggin-maima? Can't we come up with something better than that? It tastes like liquid plastic.
WILLIAM
Then why were you-
BARBARA
And it wasn't a bag of marshmallows. It's been stuffed in the back of the pantry so long it's become one big … uni-mallow. We bought it to go camping. But we never went because we're so busy and tired and …blahblah.
WILLIAM
Whoa whoa whoa, I think we need to talk about this tomoro- (The sound of the mosquito. He spots it.) Wait wait shhh. (Stalking.) Oh I got you know. Come on you little f-er. It'll all be over soon.
BARBARA
William, maybe the mosquitoes are trying to tell us something.
WILLIAM
That I'm getting too much sleep? (Swipe.)
BARBARA No, something important.
WILLIAM
That you want different syrup? (More swipes.) That Aunt Jamima needs a makeover?
BARBARA No, they're telling us-
WILLIAM
To go camping. (Swipe.) That my wife has a peculiar menstrual fixation on Smores. (Swipe. Tracking it intensely.) Oh I know, I know. They're telling us they're incredibly annoying and are quite pleased with themselves and thought we might have forgotten so just wanted to remind us out of the kindness of their little mosquito hearts.
With the word "hearts," William claps at the mosquito. He knows he has it, and with great enthusiasm grinds his hands together and squeezes emphatically until he's exhausted. Opening them, he sees the mosquito squashed and tiredly falls back onto the chair and his suit. He immediately stands and sees that he's disturbed the suit so straightens it.
BARBARA
Yeah. Kind of.
WILLIAM What? Really.
BARBARA
They're telling us we're annoyed people …inside. If we were happy people, we'd be happily annoyed. But we're not, we're annoyed annoyed. (William looks at her like she's nuts.) I was watching Oprah-
WILLIAM
Goddamn Oprah.
BARBARA (Getting excited.) -and there was this doctor on the show, and he was saying that the little things in life that bother us or make us mad, a barista screws up our drink, someone cuts us off, the "mosquitoes" of life-
WILLIAM Got it.
BARBARA -are like messengers, showing us that …
WILLIAM I'm annoyed, I know.
BARBARA Yes, but it's more than that.
WILLIAM
I'm (Mocking her quote marks.) "it's-three-a.m.-and-my-wife's-crazy annoyed?"
BARBARA
I'm serious. Have you ever asked why you feel that way? Inside. (Beat.) I think it's different for everyone. For me it's that …we've lost something.
WILLIAM
Like sanity?
BARBARA Why can't we listen to the mosquitoes? We could even love mosquitoes?
WILLIAM
If you want me to love a blood-sucking pest just because Oprah and her posse say it's in, we need to take another look at our vows.
BARBARA You don't understand. Just listen.
WILLIAM I have to get to sleep. (Going back to bed.) Barbara goes to the closet.
BARBARA
Look. (William ignores her.) Listen to me! Right here. It's all right in here. (Digging into the back of the closet, she pulls out a pair of hiking boots.) Ha! Look. This is what I mean. (Turning back into the closet she retrieves an elegant red dress.) Ah! And this. Look. Locked in the back of the closet. (Shaking both the hiking boots and dress at him.)
WILLIAM
Lovely outfit honey, what are you telling me?
BARBARA
Our passions! It's not the mosquito you're annoyed at. It's what you've- we've forgotten. (Holding up the dress.) Stuffed away like we're hiding them from ourselves. We used to hike and dance and stay up late laughing-
WILLIAM
Oh, well honey if you-
BARBARA
And what's with the honey crap? I'm sick of it. Did you come up with that all on your own? Is my name honey? (Pissed.) Do I look sweet?!
WILLIAM
Okay, fine Barbara. Jesus. So you want to go camping and out to romantic dinners. I get it. I'll take you up to Feather River next weekend for a nice-
BARBARA
No I don't want to go camping. I used to want to go camping. Now I don't know.
WILLIAM
But you just said…(Sweetly guiding her to bed.) Okay, we'll try to get out more and tap our passions.
BARBARA
No, that's what every couple does. They all try to "get out more," and, "bring more passion into the relationship," or, "mix it up in the sack."
WILLIAM
Whoa whoa. If I'm not performing in-
BARBARA
What I'm saying is that will not work because we're not passionate now! We're tired and annoyed.
WILLIAM
(William sits on the bed, tiredness really hitting him now.) It's 3 a.m. (Beat.) I'm still passionate. Barbara walks to his work suit meticulously situated on the chair, picks it up by the hanger, drops it on the floor and points at it.
WILLIAM
Hey that doesn't mean I'm not passionate. (Rushing to the clothes and pathetically re-situating them.) I'm totally passionate. (He perfectly aligns the bottoms of the pant legs with the shoes.) Remember that softball game last year? When I slid and broke my wrist. Eh, remember? I was safe. That was passionate.
BARBARA
Yeah, I remember. You'd gotten walked, and joking around, you dove into first base like an ass. (Beat.) And later you wrote a letter trying to sue the company that makes the bases.
WILLIAM
It was a passionate letter.
BARBARA
Even this. Us arguing here about whether we are or aren't passionate. Having to get sleep for the job in the morning. (Mimicking walking to work.) What about now?!
WILLIAM
What do you mean what about now? I need sleep now! Why is that too much to ask?
BARBARA
You always need sleep …we always need sleep, because we're always tired and annoyed.
WILLIAM
So, what? You want me to quit? Let the mosquitoes suck us dry like …beached whales? I'm not like you, I can't stand the itching.
14 No. 2
BARBARA You can't stand yourself. (Pause.) I need to find what we lost …or where I got lost. (Walking back to the red dress. And to herself.) It's a deeper itch I can't stand.
WILLIAM What?
BARBARA (Stomping like a child having a tantrum.) I don't want to have to get back to bed! I mean, swatting mosquitoes in the middle of the night can be like …an adventure. (Waiting for a reaction she doesn't get.) You don't have to be annoyed. Do you always want to say no to adventures because you have to work? Swatting mosquitoes is more important than work. (Gesturing again to her husband's clothes.) I mean what is this?
WILLIAM My clothes for tomorrow?
BARBARA This is just …neurotic.
WILLIAM (To the ceiling.) Neurotic she says. Syrup and marshmallows but I'm the neurotic.
BARBARA
Don't you ever want to not know what you're going to wear tomorrow?
WILLIAM Why does it matter?
BARBARA Because it's exciting! Make it up on the fly.
WILLIAM No.
BARBARA
Do you want to know why you always have to know what you're going to wear the next day?
WILLIAM Why?
BARBARA I'm asking you!
WILLIAM Hey, when I was a little kid, I used to do the same thing before school and I …I loved the …I don't know.
BARBARA Ah ha. But what did you wear then? Seriously what?
WILLIAM I don't remember.
BARBARA Come on William.
WILLIAM
I don't know … (Reluctant. Barbara encourages him.) There was a chair in the corner of my room. (She urges him on.) And …well sometimes I'd stay up late …or I don't know I'd get up early and … switch around the outfits … trying different shirts and combinations and …I don't know. It was fun.
BARBARA
(Beat.) I bet they were fun clothes. When was the last time you bought new, fun play clothes? Look at your closet. (She pulls the closet door open to his side, which is all suits and boring shirts.) It looks like a closet at the morgue.
WILLIAM
You know what, I've had enough. (Walking to his side of the bed.) I've got school tomorrow- (Beat.) I have to work. We'll talk about it tomorrow.
William goes to bed.
Barbara stares at him for a beat, then approaches, looks down and slaps him on the face hard.
WILLIAM
Ahhhhhooooowww!!!
BARBARA Now!!
WILLIAM
Did you just-?
BARBARA (Touching his face.) There was a mosquito on your face.
WILLIAM (Recoiling.) No there wasn't!
BARBARA I want an adventure!!!
WILLIAM You hit me.
BARBARA How'd it feel?
WILLIAM
Well, I don't know. I guess it felt a little- wait you just hit me! It hurt.
BARBARA
Exciting! You were going to say exciting. (Tenderly.) I want to say yes to adventures. Right now. (Getting an idea she stands) There's a bee in your hair.
WILLIAM
Oh great she's delusional. First mosquitoes, now bees, what next honey?
BARBARA
I'm being serious. It's right by your ear. (Approaching.) Bzzzz. Is it saying anything?
WILLIAM
Barbara you really should-
BARBARA
I'll help you. (Circling.) It's saying, "Bzzzzzz. Tomorrow you have to work, better get some sleeeeep. Tomorrow. (As she circles, William shoos her away.) Bzzz. Wooooorrk. (Standing back.) Kill it!!
WILLIAM
There's nothing there.
Joe Reno Dance of the Gods
BARBARA
Wait. It's saying something else, listen. Listen. Bzzzzz. Come on, use your imagination Willy. What's it telling you?
WILLIAM
Barbara I think you should-
BARBARA
(Talking very close to his ear.) No no. That's not what it said. It's talking to you. Shhh, you can barely hear it. Bzzzzzz. (William's going crazy and squirming as she buzzes in his ear.) Bzzzzz. What's it saying?
He explodes, jumping out of bed rubbing and itching his ear.
WILLIAM
There's nothing there!! You need help!
Barbara walks over, drives her face into the pillow, and shouts many profanities.
WILLIAM What?
Barbara turns.
BARBARA You're boring!
WILLIAM What? You're boring. What are you-
BARBARA
All your energy goes into dull work and boring clothes and things you've convinced yourself that you give a shit about, so now you're just a lost, boring, neurotic …mosquito hater!
WILLIAM
Fuck mosquitoes! (Exasperated.) When have you been thinking about all this?! (Taking a beat and then leaning in closer.) Is this about kids? Do you want kids-?
BARBARA
No, it's not about children. (Beat.) Well, actually yes it is. We already have them.
WILLIAM
Oh now you're seeing kids. (Hustling them out of the room.) Well come on little ones mommy's just tired, why don't you go back to bed. It'll be okay-
BARBARA Yes, yes, pretending is good. But don't push them out.
WILLIAM (Childishly storming over to the bed and ripping the covers over himself.) There are no children!
BARBARA (Pleading.) Yes there are. The ones in us. The ones we forgot in the back of the closet and in the rafters of the garage and the corners of the basement. (Beat.) And what if you and I did have children? Further back in the closet go the red dresses and hiking boots until they're in a garbage bag at the curb (Crying.) And so off little Bill and Barbie go to the dump to rot. But we can't really get rid of those children. They stay inside us, and rot there, and scream, "Let me out! Bring me back!" (Quietly.) Update me. But all we ever think or say is, (Singing the song from “Annie.”) Tomorrow, tomorrow …I hate you tomorrow! (Beat.) I mean look what's become most important to us. (Walking to the closet door, she throws heaps of clothes out.) Boring clothes. Work Clothes. Clothes to do chores in.
WILLIAM
Hon- Barbara.
BARBARA
(Whipping around to face him.) Call me Barbie!!
WILLIAM
Barb- (Pause.) Barb. It's a closet. That's where clothes go. It doesn't mean that's what's most important to us.
BARBARA
Oh really? (She rips the closet door open to his side, digs in the back and produces an electric guitar which she models in front of her like a dress.) What about this? To what sort of event would you wear this fine item of clothing? Better question: can you still play it? (Tossing it at him.) I know you want to. I see the way you do your air guitar. (Mimicking an air guitar.) Why hide it? (Turning back into the closet.) Or this. (She retrieves a shoe box in which are two trophies.) Is this a new form of footwear?
WILLIAM
Hey I had to stop boxing. It was too hard on my-
BARBARA
Yeah but what did you replace it with? Softball? (Finally feeling that she's offended him.) And look at where my life has gone. (Opening the closet door back to her side, she finds and holds up, as if it were a trophy catch, a hanger holding a punk outfit.) Halloween three years ago.
WILLIAM
Four years actually.
BARBARA
Four. And ten years ago I wore it to class. (She pulls out another hanger.) Eighties night. Remember Barbie? (She throws the outfit at him, turns back to the closet and unfolds a tiny fitted shirt that says "Get High on the Chugach.") Barbie.
WILLIAM
You want to wear these clothes again. I support that.
BARBARA
It's not about the clothes. It's about the woman I was when I wore them. She's left behind. I probably wouldn't wear these clothes now. But the person in me who did is now naked and cold and pissed because she doesn't know what she'd wear.
WILLIAM
So you don't want to wear them and you don't want to keep them, so throw them away. Go shopping!!
BARBARA
(Throwing the shirt down hard or perhaps in his face.) That's not the point. It's more than that.
WILLIAM
(Walking to her, he picks up the red dress.) You are not who you were, nobody is. It's called growth. We grow.
BARBARA
We're not growing. We're fading. (Gesturing to the clothes. Tenderly.) All the color's gone. Who's decision was it to become this?
WILLIAM
Mine …well ours.
BARBARA
I don't ever remember deciding this.
WILLIAM
You did. Over time. We all have.
Barbara drops the clothes and picks up a wedding picture that had fallen from the table.
BARBARA Remember before we were married? It was only two years ago.
WILLIAM
Barbara it was almost three.
BARBARA
(Lost in the picture.) Oh yeah, almost three. When we started living together …when we would go to bed, my heart would just …something inside me …I was so excited to have you, like a child with a puppy, I couldn't go to sleep. I didn't care about work the next day. My mind just fluttered …it flew, like moth at the light. You were my light. (Looking at him.) Why has that changed?
WILLIAM
I don't know. It just does. (Beat.) Maybe you're right but …I don't know. (Leading her to bed.) Come on, it's too late …at night I mean. You're tired. I'm tired. Tomorrow …we'll talk. I promise. (Turning her light off).
BARBARA Tomorrow. I wish tomorrow was just a bug. I'd kill it.
A moment of silence. William puts the fallen wedding picture back on the table, then goes to the heap of clothes Barbara flung on the floor. He retrieves a cool leather jacket of his. He almost puts it on, but hangs it up instead. A sexy undergarment in the back of the closet attracts him. He retrieves it and looks at it with intrigue.
WILLIAM Me-ow.
Next he puts the boxing trophies away but while making room in the back of the closet he notices something, reaches in, and retrieves a pair of boxing gloves. He puts them on and shadow boxes a little, then more, then faster. Getting excited, he bumps into the chair his suit sits on. He looks at it and starts to box the suit, then a little harder until he's wailing on it. Jabs, crosses, hooks, uppercuts. When he's worn himself out and is catching his breath, we hear a mosquito. William tracks it. It lands on his arm. He's about to slap it, but pauses. He looks at his wife, takes a moment, and listens to it.
WILLIAM
Thanks little fella. You're right. (He kills it.) And, sorry.
William suddenly dodges something in the air and makes a huge swat, clapping the boxing gloves near his wife. No response. He slaps them together again closer to her and makes more dodging movements. She turns over ignoring him. He approaches her, and right over her head slaps the gloves together a third time. Still no response. He turns her light back on.
BARBARA (Not looking at him.) Turn the light off.
WILLIAM
Bzzzzzzzzzzz (He pinches her hard.)
BARBARA
Oooowww! What are you doing?
WILLIAM
Get up Barbie. The bee's back! (Tracking the imaginary bee.) Barbara rolls over.
WILLIAM
There it is! (Slapping at it and clambering around the room.) What, don't you see it?! It's huge.
BARBARA Honey, come on you don't have to-
WILLIAM
Watch that "honey" crap Barbie. (Grabbing the boxing trophies and holding them like guns.) The name's Bill. (He shoots at the bee). I think I winged it. Ha! Wing-ed fiend. (Strutting toward it.) Wait. It's saying something.
BARBARA I appreciate-
WILLIAM
Shhhhhh! (Trying to listen.) I think he was trying to help us. What's that? There's …what's coming? A swarm of … holy …! (He tosses the red dress at her.) Put this on. Quick! Do it.
BARBARA You're just humoring me.
WILLIAM No. Put it on.
BARBARA Why?
WILLIAM For protection.
BARBARA It's too late.
WILLIAM (Calmly. Tenderly.) Maybe. Put it on anyway.
BARBARA But it doesn't fit.
WILLIAM Yeah it does.
BARBARA (Crying a little with happiness.) Really?
WILLIAM Yeah.
BARBARA Thank you. (Putting the dress on.) What did the bee say?
WILLIAM
Ahhhh! That's right! The wasps! (Running to the bee.) Thanks pal. Giant wasps are coming! (He looks toward the door of the bedroom.) There they are! Cover me.
Nicole Bauberger
How Do You Use This Machine? (RavenMonsterDress series)
WILLIAM
14 No. 2
Barbara grabs her Oprah magazine, rolling it up like a gun while William combat rolls to the closet and puts on the leather jacket, forcing his boxing gloves through the armholes.
William picks up his trophy guns again and the couple runs around dodging and shooting wasps. Running out of bullets and tossing his "guns" aside, William punches at wasps while Barbara picks up a pillow and swats at them.
Confuse them! (William throws his suit in the air, along with other piles of boring clothes.) Confuse them! Confuse them! Oh no! Barbie! Ants! (Pointing to the ground.) Fire Ants!
BARBARA From under the bed!
WILLIAM (Hopping on the bed.) Get your boots! (Barbara runs to her hiking boots, which she slips on. Laces flying, she stomps ants.)
BARBARA They're everywhere!
Wasps and ants start to take William down. He pretends to agonize.
WILLIAM They're too overwhelming. Nooooo!
BARBARA Here! (Tossing him his guitar.) Play this!
WILLIAM
Ah! Genius. (Ripping his gloves off, he plays the chord progression from All Along the Watchtower.) They're going away. (His play becomes softer and folksy.) They're gone. Why don't you come over here darlin'.
(Barbara lays down on his lap as he plays.)
BARBARA At least there were no in-laws.
WILLIAM Ouch. (Wincing.)
BARBARA Where's the bee?
WILLIAM (Looking around.) He's …on the chair.
Barbara walks to the chair and holds her hand out for the bee to climb on. She brings it to her ear and listens.
BARBARA It's saying something.
WILLIAM Oh? What?
BARBARA It says, "Tomorrow, things will go back to how they were …to how they really are."
WILLIAM
(Stops playing.) Well, maybe it's right.
BARBARA
Yeah, maybe. (Listening to something else that is speaking and looking at her husband, Barbara squashes the imaginary bee with a huge slap.)
Lights down.
End of play.
Possibly Johnny Cash and June Carter's “You'll Be Alright” plays for curtain call.
Thomas Thomas
Ginko Branch and Dew on Leaves
Autumn Leaf
Richard Stokes
POETRY
Alexandra Ellen Appel
Correction, American Dream
there is so much anger I did not know it nor did she
yet the miscreated chicken the parboiled potatoes and les Le Sueur peas set the kitchen on fire
while over in Washington Heights Grandma plucks a chicken blindfolded
what with her widow’s peak and sprightly fingers
and the Bridge shines in the early morning light as if it were no thing at all
there is the past the history of deft marching
the fear riddling American bones, Mother, swathed in Mink, Dad
one eyebrow cocked, is it all for nothing
this begotten history of sorrow ending the way it begins,
keening and devoting a catcall for love blinded for justice
herself Lady Liberty keels in devotion bring the darkness into the light
for: Anna Reiger Fineman
b. May 15, 1888, Galicia, Austrian Empire
for: Ruth Fineman Appel
b. December 7, 1912, New York, New York
Lucy Tyrrell
Old Suitcases
Lana Hechtman Ayers
Learning Without Brains Nocturne
after the Duke University study that showed Brittle starfish, despite their lack of brains, can learn to expect to be fed shrimp in altered low-light conditions*
Brittle starfish consciousness informs us that desire is distributed everywhere in the body, just as my fingers want to lay words on the page as much as my tongue does, the back of my throat, and I suppose my little toes, too, desperately want to spell out the following message to you:
I’m hungry, send more shrimp in this briny altered dark
Add strong brewed coffee to dark chocolate simmered in milk until melted and smooth, stir in sugar, cayenne and cinnamon, and top with a dollop of whipped cream. Sweet invitation and anticipation, sit on your porch in the early spring sun, frost steaming from the rooftops. Thawed branches of the maple tree and promise of leaves, inhale before your first sip. You have time. With the migration of geese, cranes and terns watch wisps of clouds feather the waking sky. Then comfort the cup warm into your hands, unbutton winter's coat, welcome morning, and darkness behind — greet the unfurling.
When Life Seems Like a Black Hole, Look for the Light Sheary Clough Suiter
Donna Beaver
Kóoshdaa káa Haibun
The Kóoshdaa káa (Land Otter People) are large creatures of lore. Our tribal descriptions connect closely to encounters of the Sasquatch, but we have much more knowledge on why no one will capture these creatures. They are gifted shapeshifters with the power of mind trickery and intelligence. Much is unknown. What about their dead—Do they have ceremony? Do they grind up bones? Lore—is many times based on truth. These are my family’s truths.
Kóoshdaa káa I Uncle Ray’s Story
I come from a family of fishermen, including my Uncle Ray, who was also a great storyteller. After the fishing season, me and two other summer workers were trying to leave the village of Hoonah and hitched a ride on his fishing boat to Seattle. There were hours and days stuck in quiet coves, waiting for the next tide change so we could try once more to battle the open seas and reach the protection of the coastline and islands of the Inside Passage. The ocean and woods conjure memory and story; this is my uncle’s—
I was on my way back to Hoonah on my boat when the weather suddenly changed— I pulled into a cove and anchored my boat next to a small island.
I gather wood to build a fire on the beach— It was cold, but dry.
I was facing the ocean and my back was to the woods Suddenly, I heard something breathing behind me— I quickly turned my head and saw nothing.
Was it an animal in the woods?
I change position— with my back facing the ocean so I could see into the forest.
As I continued to pile sticks and wood— I felt that same breath on my back I again turned quickly the only thing behind me was the ocean.
I don’t remember getting on my boat— but I never went back to that island again.
the shapeshifter walks away and becomes the forest
Two Eyes Rock Matt Witt
Kóoshdaa káa II
Mom’s Story
At our summer fish camp, our little sister was following your Auntie Julie and me down the forest path, and we shoo’d her back to camp; she was too little, and we were big girls. We came back for dinner just before dark, and Grandpa asked us, “Where’s your little sister, Katooch?”
“She’s not with us; we sent her back to camp.”
Katooch was about four years old. She had been gone all day, and Grandma and Grandpa were getting worried. Grandpa grabbed his rifle and began calling out in Tlingit, “Katooch, answer me, where are you?”
He took the path to the tire swing that he had made for us. That’s when he saw them—the Kóoshdaa káa—three of them. Two adults and a smaller one—they were swinging Katooch on the tire swing—she was laughing and calling them Grandma and Grandpa. Grandpa knew what they were—raised his rifle and shot into the air “Powk.” The Kóoshdaa káa looked at Grandpa and disappeared into the woods, leaving Katooch crying.
What I remember most was the skunk-like smell when Grandpa brought her back to camp. She was wet, covered with saliva—hair sticking to her face— Grandma and Grandpa took Katooch’s clothes and threw them into the fire.
Later, Katooch was taken to the elders they said she would be touched and always speak in half-truths we all knew our Auntie as— The Great Exaggerator.
otter people disguised as family or friend Kóoshdaa káa knows you
Rattlesnake Trail
Jennifer Bisbing
Jennifer Bisbing
"God's Country" Ranks Most Guns Per Household
Hand-stenciled red letters on the sandwich board gun show sign jump out at me
from the curb, with an arrow pointing down my block
It’s lackluster attempt at promotion didn’t speak safety, more “we follow our own rules”
On that hot summer night, I slept with my windows open With an arsenal of guns and proud gun owners five streets over At the fair grounds
A gun fair
Are there blue-ribbon prizes?
For ones shipped the furthest to reach this quiet town
For ones made the cheapest
For used ones, stolen ones, ones that would soon kill their loved ones
Cindy Buchanan Bonanza
Saturday night, 1959, and that meant Bonanza for me and my grandfather, meant I couldn’t wait until my mom dropped me off before her weekend date with someone whose care-less pats felt prickly on my skin.
I would tug the small rocking chair Grandpa made for me next to his brown recliner. His had doilies on the arms, mine had a blue cushion Grandma found at the local five and dime. Grandpa would unfold aluminum TV tables, snap the tops to their metal legs. His strong hands could plane rough edges, fix almost anything.
He’d dish ice cream into milky-green glass bowls and then we were ready for the opening credits: Ben Cartwright, Adam, Hoss, and Little Joe, the gallop of the Bonanza theme song, shots of a ranch that survived every challenge. It was always as predictable as the round scoops of Rocky Road in my bowl. Afterward, Grandma would appear from her sewing room or kitchen or garden, and tuck me into her bed where I rubbed the satin border of the evening, willing time to stop before my mother, her sweet face powder smeared, scooped me up, took me back.
Harmony
Jan Tervonen
Doug Capra
Nuts
& Bolts
When I retired from teaching, I cleared out my marred wooden desk passed down used to me, many years before, almost empty but for a nut and bolt in the center drawer. They were two, so I screwed them together, put them back along with the plastic paper clips, and waited for something to fall apart. Over the years, many things did -- projects, marriages, relationships, jobs, diets -but nothing the nut and bolt could repair. For some reason, though, I never tossed it, believing the day would come, sometime, when I would unscrew the nut from the bolt to make a point about Milton, explain Emily Dickinson’s inner struggle, why Harper Lee never wrote another book. It lay there, under the green and red and yellow paper clips that I never used either, an intimately wedded nut and bolt, through lectures on Chaucer’s world, mangled scenes from Shakespeare, student complaints about Moby Dick. Every day I’d check, make sure it was there, turn the nut a bit, sometimes actually take it off, looking around, wary of any witnesses. Then I retired and cleaned out my desk, but for that nut and bolt in the center drawer. I left it, for the next generation, fearing that a married piece of hardware might just be what holds the world together. Many years later, I visited my old classroom. I don’t know why. Certainly the nut and bolt would be gone. It was. Yes, I did open the new desk’s draw to check. Gone, the nut and bolt and every sign of the twenty-two years of my life I had spent in that room. I sometimes think, though, when I read about school shootings, falling test scores, pandemics, the decline of civility and trust, that maybe things might have turned out better, had that hardware been left alone, buried beneath the green, red and yellow plastic paper clips in the old desk’s center drawer.
Janet Klein
Wood Aging Eloquently
Dale Champlin
Last Year We Were Naturalists
In August we make love outdoors. Stars seem to pause, a few dart at a tangent.
The big dipper wheels in its colander of night and the tilted earth spins.
All through the year we collect stones, a chalky pink carapace of a crab picked clean
by gulls, sun and wind—the skull of a fox after its scent has turned to winter.
Under nature’s harsh laws vivid green fades brown, then dust.
Wind rouses clouds, leaves, wheat and water. Our chimney swifts swoop and careen.
Every day we seek something new— moss carpeting boulders, a puzzle of tree bark.
A lizard on soft sand whips its tail back and forth with a serpentine motion,
baby turtle breaks through a leathery shell and inhales its first gulp of air.
Year-old Colleen gazes at the amethyst in my ring and then kisses it.
“Purple,” she whispers as she tucks the color into herself.
Jill Johnson
Backwater
Susan Chase-Foster
Recently
I’ve come to be closer to death than birth still vibrant wild-lined brown-spotted as vine maple leaves waving parched but brilliant in red rage carrot blister tourmaline splatter wind whipped clinging to time and the only branch they’ve ever known until the final concessional fling onto earth’s cold ground.
An Unexpected Brightness
Here, teasels offer shelter to flies inside the domes of their prickly cages.
Here, in a fallow field, the last sunflower bows down to the ground before it falls.
Nothing left of the pumpkin patch but stems and spent vines resigned to wither and rot.
Here, too, hollyhocks—an unexpected brightness, like hummingbirds, their throats lined with honey.
Winter is coming. We all know it in our bones, wings, tentacles.
Termites stack adobe mounds up against the house. Stink bugs flatten themselves against windowpanes.
We huddle in our homes, tucked into blankets slacked-jawed, breathing the same air day after day
yet grateful for lungs, heartbeat, eyesight for the small red bud on the Christmas cactus—
for our children’s boots lined up on the threshold.
Previously published in Margaret Chula’s recently published poetry collection Weeding the Labyrinth, Cherry Grove Press, 2024
Feel Like I’m Half Gone
Cheryl Stadig
Margaret Chula
Autumn in the Canyon
Catherine Broom
Lucy Cotter
St. Louis Girls, 1957
Let us talk about that day when the school fell sick and the nuns were forced to send the girls home without an explanation.
How the nuclear fires raged for three days and a thick plume crossed the Irish Sea to that coastal convent town, the shortest distance between the two islands.
Let us talk about that day and other things, the unborn and still-born children, the scientists who claimed that the Windscale disaster did not “significantly affect” the Irish population.
Let us talk about cancer and dead friends and the look on your face when you returned from a school reunion where the women pieced the evidence of their lives together for the first time.
Even as a child, I could feel the threat of your impending death, the weight of collective insignificance.
Mary Eliza Crane
Horizon
A hot wind blew off the desert from a campfire in early spring on a damp afternoon in the forest. Now many years later cat paws blow sand across a north Pacific beach, and I am still here.
Despite my wanderings I never made it to the desert yet gaze beyond the mist to an infinite horizon in a world that does not yield to the yearnings of my heart or the desires which still agitate my skin.
A shell pink moon declines the west horizon, its fullness pulling down the tides. Jupiter and Saturn illuminate a blue-black sky The predawn sun spills streaks of coral light across a wide flat expanse of moistened sand.
I stand between, my naked feet immersed in shallow frigid surf, a no one in the motion of the globe. Yet I am right at home.
Tunnel Beach
Matt Witt
Mary Eliza Crane’s poetry collection Last Call of the Dark has just been published by Cirque Press
Eileen Walsh Duncan
Anthropomorphic Possum
Bedecked in a house dress, cotton weave with slight slubs, a snap-front placket, daisy embroidery down the front and hem.
Her name is Marge, but good friends can call her Barge. She lounges on the square-arm couch, mid-century modern, mint-green, button-back.
Marge-Barge smokes cigarettes, from a long black-handled holder, has the air of cigarillos and naughty treats, tiny bottles of sherry in the drawer with the fluoride rinse. In case the humans come to visit. Yet one toe pops out the edge of her Isotoner scuffs
and she lunges after bedbugs in the couch cushions, nostrils flaring. See the tufts of carrion fur wedged in, begin to wonder about the menu.
And those incidents of ant-slurping, of grub-grabbing in the petunias at night. She’s unsuitable at best –it all falls apart.
Marge-Barge and those of her ilk, shunned or flattened by cars, poisoned like vermin by our bony hands. No more moveable feasts on ticks dappling the leaves,
on spiny insect larvae that rise to the scent of our blood, or any slow-moving menaces. Our blood losses mount under the impending swarm.
Trundling along at a sonorous pace, in the midst of her bloat and growl, would she prise open her petal-pink mouth and hiss, What’d ya expect, Tick Bait?
Nicole Bauberger
Raven in Red Bra
Judith Duncan
I Have Lost
Naming is the first kind of prayer, . . . from White Peonies by Reginald Dwayne Betts
Through the urgency of God, grant me grace to remember how bees delight. The flowers disappear first, the ones near the pond that bloom in early spring.
Morning mist glistens, puddles the center of each eight-lobed leaf. They bloom in tall silence–yellow, white, pink, or purple.
Like raucous frogs buried in mud I am blind. As names disappear, I’m left grasping for every, any moment. I have lost time and day.
The one I love, yesterday or an hour ago kissed my cheek, warmed my tea.
Roger Fisher
Walking the Walks
Bernstein, Whitman, Ginsberg, Gray
Parton, Twiggy, Streisand, Doris Day Chaplin, Sullivan, Serling, Ono Berle, Allen, Gleason, Carlin, Como Dempsey, Borman, Clinton, Forman Eisenhower, rich men, poor men Hayworth, Havel, Wilson, Walters
Some walk briskly others falter
Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, Starkey
Some speak truly mad malarkey Letterman, Leno, Guggenheim, Monroe Chelsea, Soho, everywhere you go they’re
Walking the walks
Hearing a thousand different talks
In the 26 New York Minutes it takes
To walk a New York Mile
Walking the walks
Stopping for Starbucks bagels and lox
Drinking in the typically atypical New York Style
Johnson, Rodriguez, Mantle, Ruth Reiner, Lemon, Mattaugh, Booth Plant, Page, Clapton, Beck, Knotts Presley, Armstrong, Sinatra, Vox Derosier, Fossen, Curley, Sorensen Famous infamous too many to mention Hendrix, Morrison, Joplin, Jones
Many together, most alone
Thomas, Dylan, Mitchell, Sting
Going everywhere doing everything Allen, Steve Jobs, Ellison, Gates
Getting up early staying out late
Walking the walks
In the city that always rocks
No matter how great or how small
It’s one step at a time for all
Snowflakes on Manzanita Flowers Matt Witt
Jackson, Jordan, Milnes, Marx
Christopher, Streep, Porter, Parks Shankar, Lewis, Crow, Joel, John Lanois, Baez, Kocab, Lauren Jagger, Richards, Wyman, Woods
Across the pond or from the ‘hood Wolf, O’Henry, Thompson, Twain Nicholson, Brando, Fonda, Caine
Khrushchev, Gorbachev, Churchill, DeGaulle
Who walks these walks
Walks with them all Hammerstein, Rodgers, Gershwin, Berlin Giuliani, Trump, King, Merlin Wainwright, Wainwright, Fisher, Bach
This morning, three weeks to the day from our engagement and as you know, we carried our bikes on the train for Orinda and rode them home, downhill mostly, through slants of eucalyptus medicinally perfumed. You hummed ahead on the better bike with better lungs and, I suppose, the better attitude, given wholly to the road, not quietly wishing to slow on the shoulder and let the cars hurtle by without caution. There was glass in the lane that I narrowly missed looking instead at the hills to our right beyond which must glitter the wide, smashed bottle of the reservoir, though I could not see it, pouring out its improbable blues deep into the tawny season.
Then dry grass gave. Between gold slopes I glimpsed three halted arrows
V V V swooping low with the long-winged stillness of pelicans— though white, and therefore not possibly pelicans (not this far inland, nor this late in the fall)
—yet there they were, three unexpected divots seized in cooling glass above the water.
Then the next hill snapped into place, the vision vanished. If the birds returned my notice it was only for an instant,
wheels dissolving into blur, leaving us suspended taut as kites on our metal frames.
They seemed (and so we must have seemed to them) at rest against the sky, snap-shot—as if we five might possibly remain aloft forever, bright bodies striking sparks from the lake,
the road. As if for that instant in keen November light our hidden selves shone forth, all we unlikely birds.
Sandhill Crane, Homer
Cynthia Steele
Leanne Grabel
Treatment Center
II told them their magic was in their quirks in the singularities they tried to hide in their armpits, the crooks of their shame. I told them not to worry. The quirks club was enormous but the rules were kind.
I told them I wear quirks like a leaded blanket. The weight allowed my head to rise into lightness. It's a club of opposites. I told them I wear quirks like a magnificent stole at least I try to at least I want to.
I told them about my feet. Once adorably small they turned into sea creatures. How my toes are like a haphazard family of goats that nudge each other ride up on each other. Such rude molestations.
A girl raised her hand and said she had a drawer full of heel skin and that she dreamt every night of sticking pins in her boyfriend's eyes To keep love blind she said. Then she laughed hard. We all stared at her, a little surprised. But it's what I asked for.
Definite A.
Anxiety
Phyllis Green
Beth Hartley
The Light Will Automatically Turn on in Water
“The light on your life vest will automatically turn on in water.” I look away from the flight attendant’s safety briefing through the oval window to the bluegray ocean below—cresting waves, tiny half-moons of frothy motion, seem frozen in place, lazily passing underfoot at 669 miles per hour. At 30,000 feet things appear smaller than they are. The plane bounces gently. Andy told me air turbulence was like driving over a bumpy road. We were in a Cessna 142 when he said this—not a Boeing 737. Six foot ocean waves are not a bumpy road.
Secured below my seat, yellow life vest vows I’d float in frozen swells
“The light from your life vest will automatically turn on in water.” I watch the flight attendant. He has a nice face - round, slightly square edges, and his eyes crinkle when he smiles; and, anyway, I sit right next to him in Row 6 during his safety briefing. Airplane accidents are rare. I’m haunted by images of wet-suit clad divers fishing body parts, plane parts, and sodden luggage from the uneasy ocean near Los Angeles—an 80 second fall from 31000 feet - rare, but spectacular disasters. In small planes, you can watch your shadow zip like a giant mosquito, at 500 to 1000 feet, among the green red gold curves of tundra and arctic lakes. The acrylic cockpit window, partly secured with duct-tape, may gape, sucked out and in by the inhale/exhale of an ocean storm that presses 5 miles to port. Prognosis: You’re likely to survive without a life vest.
Ocean cresting grey, cement hard from 30,000 feet. My light won’t work.
“The light from your life vest will automatically turn on in water.” So, I asked the flight attendant, when he finished: “You really do this just because you have to make people feel safe, right? If we drop, we’re not going to have time to put on our life vests.” He looked at me, eyes wide for a nanosecond, choked on his chuckle, and joked, “just don’t tell anyone.”
Risk chosen, ignored. Illusion of safety makes for a good trip.
Epilogue
“The light on your life vest will automatically turn on in water." Shoulder lights blink steadily. 206 empty yellow life vests, inflated, red straps trailing like jellyfish tendrils, bob, dip, and surf in the 6-foot swells—a floating raft of seagulls as they ride out the storm.
Monster Puppeteer (RavenMonsterDress series)
Nicole Bauberger
Paul K. Haeder
King Tide Pulling Seal Carcasses
While
Gaza Disappears
the wrack line carries pacific entrails, entire wharfs from Japan crashed into this small town’s sea wall, tsunami there, motion here
scientists studying barnacles, benthic species, concerned about invasive species, colonizing . . . that harbor seal cursed as 600 lounge on haul out spit, waiting for salmon’s return
but seals are sometimes like homo consumopithecus all in it for the kill, smelt, crabs pups on their own, like Gaza’s babies those Thursday, Friday weddings in Yemen, entire families set into explosive motion, kinetic bombs USA made riveted here, signed by celebrities in Israel, even crypto-zionist Pence magic-marking his John Hancock
explosives destined for Palestinian scholars, bakers, shoemakers, mothers, children in UN schools, just disabled fools, anything that moves bombed
yet this harbor seal eyes like a lab’s crying for warmth of mother, but madre seeks food, seeks rushing salmon slogging back from pacific currents to homeland, raceways set up for hatchery line each nip of DNA photocopied
yet pup drags air, nostrils puffed up, then waves motion back and forth seal child’s eyes stare at me, lumbering terrestrial
Partial Eclipse of the Cantaloupe
Jack Broom
out to photograph tides advancing higher each year
while motion of stars begin a dance, fish running up Alsea River, dying seal tugged under then up, dusk folding in the children of Gaza nothing more than wasted lives on TV freak news, shows ice storms, snow banks even log three minutes of seal pups, struggling heads bobbing until pacific undertow takes life back into sea
as Palestine barely makes tickertape scroll another seal bites the dust tourist rushes to help old man me barking to them, let nature take its course . . . cry for the children Houthis, Palestinians, Sudanese don’t let nature take its course . . .
Jim Hanlen
Careful Calling Up the Bear
One of the qualities I like about bears is their sideways. They know how to walk sideways in the forest. I’d hire a bear to do surveillance if I had a detective agency. Sly as a fox and quieter than mice, their padded feet are like moccasins. Riled up they can claw the skin off your face. When the shaman does the bear mask dance, notice how he moves sideways, how he will stop and slide the mask to the side, and you can’t tell whose face is showing, the bear or the man.
Charles Hertz
Bob Hicks
Oxytocin
Nine Years.
Three adoptions failed. Bureaucratic indifference, program closure, Coup.
Grief tangled throughout.
Onyx, Our black lab, served
As the prime beneficiary of displaced affection. Love nine years imagined, A reservoir of care and devotion, Re-channeled into a 65 lb. canine.
Sweet praise, Fingertips gently raking though fur, An infusion of oxytocin, The founder of dog parks nationwide, The designer of a million-count stock of pet toys.
Just down the midnight street, Or even across the lamp-lit room, Stands tragedy.
And all around there’s The love-blind demands of economy, duty, The endless missteps of our days.
Are we stranded, A life ruminant and interim, Waiting, waiting
For those who never came to us?
For those who left?
The swish of a tail.
Circle and circle and circle and plunk to the floor. Eyes upwards, shining in devotion, With a tinge of demand. And for a moment, The questions lessen.
Teri White Carns
Tamara Holman
I'm the Type of Person Who Doesn't Care
What the Old Ladies Said
Madge is a liar; you know what I'm saying? I'm sure she never had a rockstar in her bed, nor did she live next door to the parents of an Edmund Fitzgerald sailor. Every conversation ends with how she's been there, done that, you know? Every day when I go to the dayroom, she is there telling her Paul Bunyan stories to the old ladies. She is an expert in so many things, that Madge.
Come to think of it, a couple of weeks ago, I went to her room, and she told me the doctors are wrong, she doesn't have congestive heart failure. But you don't need a PhD to see that she is failing. She can't even get out of the bed anymore. Today, I went once more to sit by Madge's side. The old ladies in the dayroom said why bother? She can't speak since the stroke. What am I supposed to do now?
Staged
Daniel Penner Cline
Jaqualyn Johnson
Two Poems
Guest at the Back Door
Blue moonlight shrouds newborn grass. At the back door, youthful longlegs daddy gawks at green-eyed landscape as if earth can be owned.
White shirtsleeves rolled to elbow, dark pants, his bartending attire. Hands rest on hip. A gaunt-eyed approval, he nods to sky’s lampshade.
Why did you have to die at 36?
My head turns toward apparition who vanishes on my exhale. No calling card –no proof.
Eyelids flutter. Light claws at my feet. His voice a filament, thin as butterfly wings.
Home Jack Broom
Caged
Rock clusters tumble like gray cataracts. Tiddly-wink condos stretch horizon, bury green-stemmed grassy feet. Sun shadows concrete landscape. Rocks pile as humans tower. Caged.
Apartment boasts 550 square feet. Half fridge built into cupboard. Drawers can house an infant. Slim, sleek, slick counter. Light filters through prison windows, untaxed. Camping sink overflows. Bathroom’s triangle shower, plenty for half-person. Cramped bedroom. Rubble clothes.
Tenant tosses belongings. Recycle what no longer fits. Breathing takes up space.
Insatiable landlord raises rent $50 per week beyond $3000 a month paid to live in city pens that shroud clouds. Rocks shift. Relentless pursuit of survival, a tomb.
Jill Johnson
Scrubland
In this scrubland town goodness survives like sagebrush: perennial, not showy, resisting fire. A cornerstone, it binds us together like the community of deep-rooted spikey forms that we are.
Whatever the disaster, we form a bucket brigade of water or food or machine parts knowing that we also hang by a thin and fraying thread.
Distrust, when it arrives, like cheatgrass, fake-news suspicion is prone to fire so hot it takes everything.
We make this disaster— burn our goodness down with fire so hot that no bucket brigade will cope, no bucket brigade will even try to form.
Susan Johnson
Midwinter
calls us in to pause, to renew, to remember the source that nourishes self.
Go ahead and rest for now. Breathe slowly in, slowly out, again and again.
Listen to the pulse of dark womb of incubation. Let her hold you in quiet rhythm.
No need to hurry. There will be days ahead for doing, for pacing yourself in long light and brilliant skies.
See that golden slant of afternoon sun through the trees? Feel how it softens your shoulders, slows your feet on the trail.
Now pause right there and study the grace of the pine branch curved by the weight of fresh snow.
Nard Claar
On The Willamette River
Karen Jones
In the Early Spring
Back when everyone was still alive –Memil and Oscar, Toots and Short, Paul and Nancy, my brother Davy, back when the air warmed to sun
and ice sugared to honey-thaw, and chunks of it sparkled and dripped into my woolen mittens, and I bit into its lattice, crunched its dirt
between my teeth, back when the lake ice began to melt, darken, pull from shore, and it was too late for the last sinking ice houses,
and collie Kerry barely escaped from an ice floe, while northwest winds hummed through old dock poles, and ice turned to whitecaps on blue,
blue water, and you could smell muck floating from lakebottom, back when garter snakes slid from their burrows to twine among hummocks and stubble,
when bees emerged from their hives to begin their dance and flight, when cattail spears greened the shore, redwings called their ringing calls,
migrating swans whistled from clouds, yes, back when everyone was still alive, it was then I launched my rowboat, began to untangle my fishing line.
Pox
Jim Thiele
Taya Kesslau
Hundred Acre Woods: Vacancy
Nothing stands alone in these woods. There is no life fending on its own in this community of roots and wings, fronds, claws, many-legged scuttlers. Balance holds the scales beauty in dependencies. Leaning, webbing, highways in the overstory. Tales of abundance, and loss too.
And speaking of loss, there is the place just off the trail where the old one waits.
Her roots raised up cuddling empty space where once another slept sloughing lifetimes of nourishment and now the vacancy. Open space for another. And so, a close watch is kept for the nest or nestling creature that will tuck within the waiting arms, into the undying devotion of the forest.
David Kiffer
Aides To Navigation
God knows when you drew this line across the map. Your number three pencil digging in, just off Twenty Fathom Banks, and riding the straight edge all the way around the marker to Chasina Point and into the little hole-in-the-wall halfway between Windy Point and Smuggler's Cove; The shortest distance over the undulating bottom always twenty degrees north of Skin Island and the shoals of Hog Rocks.
Funny I can’t remember you ever pulling this chart down from the rack on the pilot house ceiling though we made this run to shelter many times. The line is so faded, anyway, you'd have had trouble seeing it with your reading glasses from the Five and Dime.
I suspect you could have made the run in the dark. You didn't need to be reminded how wide to swing around the deadhead inside the point, how close to nuzzle the beach before dropping the pick or how much chain to play out.
Yet, you always reached for a chart as the narrows near home hove into view, as if you didn't trust the beacons, the green lights, the bobbing aides to navigation set out like a warm meal. Those charts were decades out-of-date, relics from the time of plumb bobs and sounding stones, the days when sailing ships nosed into the unknown, then edged tenderly back.
Birch Allee
Lucy Tyrrell
First published in Writer’s Corner Anthology 2024: Poetry & Prose Written by Village Books Writing Groups, David Baumier, ed.
Mercedes Lawry
Locating
Around the back of my future I trip, skid into a pile of empty boxes, quite a mess but easy to tidy.
I move sideways at certain times as if to fool the gods, as if I still believed, though there are echoes from my holy days of Latin and incense.
My balance is pathetic, always has been. I couldn’t cross the log with abandon, but had to slither on my ass, humbled and annoyed as the bully jays squawked.
Here in the wilderness I am equal to my imagination. Now that time is passing with startling speed, I appreciate my angles and mordant wit, the acid green of the new moss, the renegade columbine, how I see connections, suspension bridges that sway over deep crevasses, courting the sky, the very tops of trees.
Eric le Fatte
The Dead River
The rapids flipped our open boat. They washed me onto the edge of the bank like debris. They swept you downstream and pressed you against the colossal trunk of a fallen cedar that spanned the torrent. Stranded, I watched as the force of the current kept you from clambering up the wet wood to safety: the flow of the Dead was not to be changed by my prayers or your efforts. With eyes big as coins and lips turning purple, you glanced to the sky for benediction. Then you nodded my way, plunged yourself under, and let the water take what it wanted.
October Sunset View From My Window
Annekathrin Hansen
Michael Magee
Fiumei Cemetery, Budapest
Never had a place felt so dead the smell of death was in the air chestnuts exploding all around me like napalm dropping bombs from the sky, sarcophagi in repose, a mausoleum seemed to be foreclosed the wrought iron fence seemed to be holding hands with the statuary.
Through the long colonnade I entwined my sighs, gravestones nodding heads poets were there and artists too, a photogravure exhibit set up like gravestones, black slate plaques photos of Klosz and Gyorgy I thought of Robert Kappa, how he died stepping on a land mine and watched my feet, his mother grieving at his side.
Let them die in stone veined marble Deak, Ferencz, Kioszk, photo of the gymnasium in 1905 where ice skaters go hand in hand and little girls turn into swans, turning on a frozen pond, a chapel to play in, an open door to all who come here to find a place, dance in circles in the leaves, turn your sails into the wind that blows through Fiumei to rest, while a man plays his lute decorated with flowers in the laps of children.
Three Stacks at Sunset Matt Witt
Phyllis Mannan
Ode to Manzanita Beach Clouds
O fishscale, sheepback, jellyfish clouds wave clouds rain-streaked stratus
you dazzle us with your bounty
clouds like silk, like porous metal clouds like cartoon bubbles
clouds that echo ocean breakers scud like sea foam feather out like smoke
laminated, tessellated clouds wisps and patches heaps and towers
you shapeshift over sea and headlands
horizon-hugging steam puffs
Neahkahnie’s Nordic cap
you paint the ocean gunmetal tint the sky carnelian
linger with your load of vapor white and silver cups of rain
Jennifer Bisbing Whidbey Island
Jayne Marek
Kitchen
My mother so angry I would stop at the doorway to listen for clatter, papers or silverware, edges shaken together, or stacked in a haste of furious attention. I’d hold my breath and guess what the noise was about this time and how I would go in. I’d want something to eat, afternoons or at dusk, so I’d slide one foot across the lit floor, slip the other in, holding the cupboard corner. When I came to take, there she was at the table, as if my cares could not stack up against her endless work. My mother’s head twisted toward me, her back bent, in a homemade jacket, her hands— I hated that she was always busy, it tired me to think this was life, cleaning, jotting, sewing, reaching to slap. She read my scorn when she glanced at me. I wanted to eat what she worked to get, foods that might overflow the empty pots of family. I thought, if I pretended not to see, I would not come into such misery, that some thin cookie would satisfy me for an hour, like a real thing.
Beyond the Fray (earth pigment, soy, thread, reclaimed linen, on gallery wrapped canvas)
Sheary Clough Suiter
134 CIRQUE
Shirley Martin Lines
My clothesline spans from repurposed boom boat mast to cedar post aligned with cedar tree. I long to write, but my to do list stretches fathoms deep — laundry is this morning’s chore. I lean out from my deck affix dripping sheets to supple line.
Pin and reel, pin and reel, I squeeze Granny’s weathered wooden clothes pegs, hang soggy towels, settle in to the rhythm of my task. Salted breeze breathes up the hill, waves wash the pebbled beach. Cavorting sea lions plunge and swash, seagulls shriek, oystercatchers whistle, and pterodactyl heron swoops, squawking, directly overhead.
Pin and reel, pin and reel, the tempo soothes my spirit. If only I could take my latest draft pin each page to coated-wire line reel it out, imbue my poem with sea air, bird calls, storied shoreline, ebb and flow of harbour’s tide.
Blue Tones
Jan Tervonen
David McElroy
Becoming
In the boat, in the womb, I am rocked by water. Wallow, lift, and fall, heel, knock, and pitch. Cat boat, tug boat, mother cave and crib, I begin unstable.
I am rocked by water. Some days the heart’s gallop is slow, and a high cloud’s blue roan rocks aft settled in a collected canter. Breathing the ocean’s perfume I cross my summers in peace, ratified, rafted on the living water.
Wallow, lift, and fall, galley dishes rattle, the sloop, the scow, body and blood bear me along. The mountains shed snow pack, rock and gorge come clear and tide rips swirl the flow.
Heel, knock and pitch, some days come awash on raft or skiff, ambulance, the room where you wait. U-joint askew, motor flange leaking oil, in hospice the scan shows a broken rudder hinge.
Cat boat, tug boat, ash and urn, womb and crib that love gets poured into. Up on the mantel, unstable, rigging lines rattle. Horizons moving away, never reaching, always becoming.
Stiff wind on the quarter, I am rocked by water.
Whale Hide Road
Cheryl Stadig
John McKay
Leavetaking
for Jack Roderick
Summer’s finally spent and winter’s still a ghost in the woodpile where last year’s logs settle into place. Hefty rounds of the mighty birch that was till Fall the glory of our neighborhood sit stacked like silent sentries beside the splits of softer spruce and limbs of lilac lost to the ice storm that December Martha died.
What stories are congealed in their sap, traced in their weathering surfaces? Each season betrothed to the next with rings that join them, alternating hints of pasts shared and unshared. With this ring, who was wed? Whose past to what future?
Did some strapping All-American lad when this thin contour was formed set down his leather helmet to answer his country’s call? Or first flirt with a future in a faraway territory the year that circle grew?
So few clues left of buffeting storms, of small creatures that climbed its trunk and nestled in its limbs, no reflections remaining from the evening sun that danced on its elegant curling bark.
When a great tree falls, it is often chopped up into metaphors. Split these rounds with love some chill October day. Feel the heft of the axe, the cold wet cotton clinging to your back. Stack a cord under the eaves, to season just out of sight. Carry it to your hearth to warm winter nights crackling with memories.
Follow the rising smoke, with sweet familiar scent, as it drifts across your beloved community, over houses with friends playing bridge in the den, past dry gin joints and parkstrips and ball fields and ski trails, in wisps too thin to hide the stars.
New Chapter
Cheryl Stadig
Karla Linn Merrifield
Metaphors of Basic Chemistry
In the laboratory where I now live my life, I line up the solutions of problems in Erlenmeyer flasks. Their clear glass bodies are solid, retaining the murk within. I ask them to hold their state of matter indefinitely and they comply, taking the measure of my apprehensions. Each container keeps my fears in thick colloidal suspension. In one, molecules of cancer; in another, those of senility and death; and in the third, its liquid most densely laden, its label in indelible black ink marked Love Potion #3: Countless atoms of utter solitude. It’s a test, the same experiment each day. I time their infinitesimal moment of precipitation, when I tap them with my fingertip, set in Brownian motion again their mad swirl. Each day I note consistent findings; each day it comes slightly quicker. My hypothesis is: the less blood, the faster that instant arrives. My data support the notion, will do so until the final red drop evaporates. One day I will die, having proven problems once dissolved always concentrate at the bottom sooner than you think.
Trapped
Jim Thiele
John Morgan
Postcard from Nancy
As companion to the Crivelli, a Vermeer with your sad hand full of worries on the reverse. This too from the Gardner:
a young Dutch lady performs at the virginal. A gallant gentleman, his back to us, lends one ear to the music, while
his other attends a blue dressed matron’s account. Inevitably the checkerboard floor; and in the left foreground
a bass viol has been laid down next to a draped desk. Is he a soldier?
Beside the quill
and parchment, could it be that those are coins? Why in such a domestic scene does Caravaggio’s
prostitute laugh on the wall above the music? This painting filled with lightly arrested motions may offer us repose,
in hope that, not in despite of the world, our music, when I escort your viola, will hold us counterpoised.
My diamond for his guilders? No. No brokers, Nancy. In this age of war and purchased love mine’s a free answer.
[Note: This is the earliest poem in my chapbook The Nancy Poems, published by Cirque Press. At the time it was written, I was in graduate school at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and Nancy was a sophomore at Simmons College in Boston. She was taking an art history class and would occasionally send me postcards from the Gardner Museum. I wrote several poems for her based on those cards. This one would later be chosen for the Academy of American Poets prize at the workshop. Incidentally, the painting it describes, “The Concert” by Vermeer, was stolen from the museum in 1990, along with 12 other works. There is a $10,000,000 reward outstanding for information leading to their safe return.]
John Morgan’s poetry collection The Nancy Poems has just been published by Cirque Press
Iowa City, 1965
Box of Wisdom
Mandy Ramsey
Steve Neuberger
Christmas Dream
Maybe.
Maybe we’ll go hear the Southern Oregon Jazz Orchestra play jazzy Christmas tunes, hold each other and dance, close, to a cloying, saucy “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas.”
Maybe the perfectly coiffed dead will join us.
Phyllis, my mom, her big silver earrings shiny like cymbals, will keep the rhythm to an upbeat Rudolph, her highball banging the table on the downbeat, amber scotch sloshing like waves.
Barbara, my mother-in-law, a red vest, sapphire teardrop earrings highlighting her clear blue eyes, will, if I implore her, waltz to Silver Bells.
Maybe.
Dion O’Reilly
Corvid
Allow crows. —Roger Reeves
Because they mate for life without need for polyamory,
because they speak human words without living in cages,
flourish in kin-tribes with none thrown out,
because they thrive on our detritus— our suburbs and cities—
follow our armies to feast on the dead,
we hate them, insist there’s evil in blackness—
though their plumage catches sky, brass metal, the last clouds of morning as they bleed into sun.
Oh spilled ink of our own invasion, sky-quill of history, black-satin fear—
I wish we loved what you tell us about ourselves
when you screech our future from the high dead tree.
Jill Johnson Green Door, Old Truck
Dixie Partridge
Old Small Towns, West
Water is the true wealth in a dry land.
—Wallace Stegner
Like the sound of an old harmonica, a train whistle wavers in the distance, the side track that once came through town filled in with cheat grass and brown weed.
Peaks on the north horizon mark where water started its way toward this dry ground. Here, my uncle long ago grew corn and hay for a few cattle, but drier years followed his hope and no young person ever stayed for long.
The old cottonwood in the once cornfield is dusty green, roots somehow touching moisture enough to sustain a life. A gray barn is on its knees, collapsing in on itself. Even the four-room house looks thirsty, sagging to one side, windows still intact but sueded in dust.
Memory is green though… those two visits here. My cousin, barefoot and brown, taught me to ride bareback and to savor sun and sweet corn on the cob.
In the short distance looms the old granary where we used to climb and dare each other to slide down— wearing our seats to warm aluminum gray.
I walk toward it still, many of my days, down the dust of the no-longer street.
Timothy Pilgrim
Livid regret
Years stacked up, I [drink] mimosa, repeated nips — in fact, throat the whole thermos. Lean close, thumb my phone, increase font size, sigh, alone. Watch night surf flow in with trash. Imagine I die outlined by plastic on black sand, in livid foam. Float out to sea at high tide, a splenetic rift. Drool on my screen — toothless, spit. Vow to forgive myself for a part in all this. Forget.
Janet Klein
Ripped
Shauna Potocky
Under the Bell Tower
We live under the bell tower in tight spaces, huddled to talk, huddled to sing huddled to feel the fire warmth of winter, cold and blustery storm beyond the doors.
We live under the bell tower soup and bread on Fridays surprise weddings for friends too humble to host their own party so the community does it for them and everyone shows up.
We live under the bell tower show our inner selves to the world through oils on canvas, pastel chalk sparking metals, poems stories of our lives.
Under the bell tower minutes of our lives ticking away we choose this place, living space day after day, with these friendly souls laughing and suffering with us we weather all of it together long list of fates.
Rumble rush and fear earthquakes, tsunami sirens squealing passing of parents, passing of children heartbreak, paperwork, thesis, book draft new puppy, old dog begging first date latte, own cup espresso politics, pandemic, coming back to ourselves.
This tall old spire in the skyscape of rough mountains scent of sweet pastry dough baking ground coffee, voices humming, the creak of old wood stairs, sound of chairs pulled from tables to make room under the bell tower where we live.
Richard Stokes Sunset
Mandy Ramsey
Current, Clutch, Chrysalis: a Tritina
I tried to surrender to the current Release control of the steering wheel, gas pedal and clutch, And allow myself to become still in the chrysalis.
The journey from caterpillar to chrysalis Is one of trust and transformation, guided by an invisible current To change from motion to a cocoon clutched.
Just as the baby sea turtle knows it is time to emerge from the deep sand and clutch So too the butterfly knows when it is time to leave the chrysalis Both are led by an inner knowing, an inner current.
How beautiful to honor the current stage of growth, release the clutch of fear and trust you will fly when you leave the chrysalis.
Nicole Bauberger, Paul Gowdie photo Spring Melt
Diane Ray
A Still-Small Sculpture Speaks
Cartoid Lobe, by Glass Artist Benjamin Cobb Museum of Northwest Art, La Connor, Washington
I am the treeness of a tree breaching from the orb of life in all its silvery promise.
In light and loam I breathe to flourish root to canopy. I am Hawthorn, Willow, Ash
forked low from my salad days; I am Lodgepole or Ponderosa pine fingering winds in maturity.
I am Douglas Fir sign my good green name all up and down your coast.
I am manifest grandeur in woodlands, forests, coastal rain to boreal.
High and mighty soar my trunks supplying supple, reaching arms to my inclusive cohort—
owls, eagles, beavers, spiders, bears among my chosen— you, too, humans.
Catch the raindrop gleam on me between lowlight and wintry sunbreaks often shawled in lichens and furry moss.
I am the pelt of Oregon and Washington
If you let me be If you let me
If you…
Benjamin Cobb, Glass Artist; Jeff Curtis, photographer
Carotid Lobe Pair
Tim Sherry
Blood Sport
On the floor of the garage where the guns, the tents, the cammo, a weekend’s food are laid out, the planning is precise in its demands for opening day. From father to son, with uncle and neighbor handing in, everything is said as it has been said for ten thousand years.
The evenings of circling there, voices low in the reverence needed, are as old as mammoth bones dug out where a kill happened when fire was carried on a stick. The last midnight is a hunt prepared.
The morning of departure is traffic lights still on yellow blink past the warehouses at the edge of town— and finally to the slow rise towards the foothills as red prepares the distance. Instinct steers the two pickups, and coffee cups emptied smell of blood.
Judith Skillman
Penelope Weaves Forsythia
This my wand of yellow, hint of olive, myth of three more snows.
This my shattering—to come up from under. There the owls plied me with shades,
eye-glinting odalisques set in trees growing downward, roots of a body that was mine
back then, before aging. This my dowry, water sparkling for hunting and rutting,
a dance I sit and watch, my long gown gathered and sewn by green veined hands.
Daniel Penner Cline
Anticipation
Jack Broom
Open All Night
Craig Smith
The Footrace
A 10-kilometer footrace is going through the park
Where I am walking my dog
The elite runners arrive first first They are fit, trim and speedy All business, no smiles They make you proud to be of the same species
The mid-pack runners are next They look serious but aren’t fast But it is clear that running Is something they take seriously
At last, here come the slow runners
These are my folks – just wanting to finish They appreciate any encouragement
Such as “You’re going to make it!”
These joggers have time to smile
You can holler, “Nice blue shoes!”
Or “You in the red – you win best shirt!”
Many of these folks wave and grin
This is as close as they will come To being regarded as true athletes
Many are past middle age And some are overweight
But they entered the race For personal satisfaction And it’s my duty as a spectator To give them encouragement
“You’re halfway there!”
“Water ahead in 300 yards!”
“Looking strong, you’re going to make it!”
And, “There’s beer at the finish line!”
Even though there isn’t
Stancik
Orchestra
A heron conducts a river like her own blue orchestra. Pool of trout, slick bows gliding over the gut of the water each playing its part before the conductor’s baton strikes in crescendo, jerks a rainbow into the light–sleek soloist, tail flapping beats and then he vanishes, one rhythmic gulp at a time into darkness. A requiem.
Kathleen
Jan Tervonen
Rhapsody au Gardin
Cynthia Steele
I Now Pronounce You
He faces hospice, slow letting go.
Avid gardener, good man, grandpa.
Decades embraced in Naval service trapped in the matrix of asbestos, encapsulated, safe.
Tea diffuses brown through osmosis
Hummingbirds hover, sipping sweetness
Avocado green coats the blender’s glass Deer skitter-rustle along the treeline.
Grouse brave a nearby pond, trailing cheepers
Cautious eyes trust this place Methow Valley.
His mind remains intact, sharp
Asbestos ushered in a dull ache that grew to pain, flowered to body
Diffused out through osmosis, spreading Autumn sun mottles dusty windows.
Don the hats of great grandparents
Letting home, family, tradition
Sink into their bones
Troubles come as troubles will Face them squarely
Fill them with romantic gestures— Sunflowers, lilies, roses in vases; on lips kisses
And then, the inevitable end of life while the other lives on.
They wanted romance; wanted it
They wanted it to fill them, make their blood rush
Make them swoon and then calmly depend On an end they’d imagined would be
Together, encapsulated, safe.
Phyllis Green
Lovebirds
Richard Stokes
Caps
Five men share a table at the corner café. At 79, Sam is the youngest. The others call him kid.
All wear baseball-style caps with the visor shadowing their forehead instead of the back of their necks like their grandsons.
Sam wears his cap to hide the island of flesh emerging from where his troublesome cowlicks used to grow.
Earl snugs his low on the forehead so the few scraggly hairs at what used to be a hairline remain unseen.
Mark’s cap is emblazoned with Exxon Mobil to whom Mark devoted his working life. Whenever Mark slips on the cap he gets a whiff of relevance.
Dan has caps for all occasions, Green Bay Packers, Seattle Mariners, and McCrackle’s Feed and Seed. When he wants a fight, his MAGA hat.
Richard’s cap is plain, no identification or message, but it conceals an inner skin of aluminum to foil governmental mind control.
Jayne Marek Eye Within Eye
Joanna Streetly
Thrown
Triumph was a stone skipped all the way across the island’s western bay, a survivor, not gulped by mouths of waves, otters, gulls, kelp, tide—everywhere life in motion & the boys did not care for questions about where the best stones came from, or if they minded being thrown—flash of sun on waves, oystercatcher fly-bys, limbs of boys consumed by sand—I was missing the point when I asked things like that—novice stepmother, not part of their quick world, hunt for tadpoles, lure of fish—no time for thinking that my life was like a stone, the way it seemed to have arrived in their young hands; how—suddenly—it wished to stay.
Mark Strohschein
World War III
Yesterday, my stepdaughter came in from playing and asked with true fear in her eyes Are we going to have World War III? after chatting with the neighbor girl, who said that if we did have one she & her family would pack up their guns, gear & ammo and bivouac on Mt. Baker & go way up high in the mountains so they couldn’t find us.
My grandpa has a rifle, she added. And he sleeps with a baseball bat. And I killed a raccoon before.
And my Papa can shoot a gun, said my second stepdaughter, their fear tempered somewhat.
So after we determined that senior members of our respective families could brandish firearms to ward off any and all hostile enemies present in the Snoqualmie National Forest, I tried to offer some perspective.
David A. Goodrum
Sea Foam Archipelago
Do you know what fear-mongering is?
I asked, knowing they didn’t. Blank looks followed by pregnant pause. It’s when we believe things the fringe media tries to tell us are true. Then they stir us up because that’s how they get ratings. They traffic in fear.
So the first step in avoiding WW III is to ingest real news—to accept some truth into our lives. That’s World War III.
A war worth fighting.
An uphill battle, yes, but at least we won’t have to travel to the mountains to do it.
J. T. Townley
A Sasquatch’s Lament
My absence is no accident. It’s not hard to stay a step Ahead of homo sapiens, who Track me year-round through fir Forests of the Western slope, Cameras focused, eager for
Evidence of my existence. Wolves catch my scent on autumn Wind; elk spook and scatter. Yet I could be ten feet from a Happy hiker, behind a pine, In a spruce’s low branches,
And he’d be none the wiser. Wisdom is not their chief worry. Just look at the mess They’ve made. I want nothing to Do with their virtual worlds And screen culture. Who needs the
Constant barrage of meaningless Blather? I’m not alone, I’m Never alone. We are many, But we don’t travel in packs, Moving solo and silent As shadows. In solitude
For company. But we’re losing Territory to morose Suburbs and strip malls. They chop Down the trees and pave everything With asphalt and concrete. Where Are we supposed to live?
On sweet summer breeze, the Angry buzz of chainsaws.
Tami Phelps Dad Always Made Us Rope Swings
Lucy Tyrrell
Anaktuvuk Mask
Whose face-soul behind the mask stares from the cabinet through the glass?
Colored like brown eggs or steeping tea, the mask pushes out round potato nose. Above eyelash fences, bristly and black, long strands of gray, parted in the center, drift down almost to the chin, mostly hidden by the mask’s wolf ruff parka hood. Toothless pinch of lips part without words. Smooth chamois-skin surrounds vacant eyes. Imagine dark, unblinking stare from husk of skin.
John Van Dreal
Christmas Card to Sammy
Happy holidays, buddy!
Flown south for snorkeling and sleep. I miss us but know my happy hour habits are a trigger; you can’t be around me.
I’d give up the drink so you could, if you’d let me, but you won’t (or you know I can’t).
Left my watch in my suitcase and don’t give even a tiny shit what time it is. I do know it’s time to feed my thirst.
I remember you saying, “my liver actually hurts.” Lifelong friends, we lost each other on that day. Our common ground—trip hop musical infusions, the thrill of renouncing religious dogma, the animating experience of a Tarantino film— lost when you thoughtfully, wisely evicted our common denominator from your life.
My stewed brain struggles to recall our adventures, our talk, our jokes. Here, without you. It’s different.
Can’t keep track of the number, but my daily cocktails are many.
I may have to join you at that meeting before long.
Jill Johnson Nude with a green necklace
Ken Waldman
Santa Claus
Has it already been twelve years, the show north of Tahoe, a husky gentleman with white hair, flowing beard, who mentioned backstage he'd found me to say hello since he'd changed driver's license—which was no small thing—and credit cards. He said it again so I'd get the point. I watched the man dig in his wallet, do a quick jig, go prove to me, yes, he'd indeed changed his name to Santa Claus. He declared to some fame thereabouts. I thought to a Quaker friend in Fairbanks, white hair, big beard, musician who claimed holidays were for amateurs.
Sheary Clough Suiter
Encroachment (oil and cold wax on cradled panel)
Janet Klein
Halibut Cove Coffee Shop Guard
Emily Wall
In the face of his anger
Tonight I fold my too-big body down, like a petal,
separated from stem. I begin to feel smaller, as I lean closer to the earth.
Those bright days, lifting into the sky feel far away—can I even remember what it felt like to hold on? Now garden soil opens, a calm café filled with good things to eat, with dark corners, and perhaps a few others who have also unhooked from sky and stem.
I look down and see this creased petal of body, folding into smallness.
I try to make it a prayer, or a beautiful bowing.
Lillo Way
To a Downtown Gull
You see me trudging the shit-soaked alley sobbing, as you scream your saltwater scream. You, not miserable not depressed, only questioning the conditions: why-ee, why-ee, why-ee.
Alley of lost boys and girls, now toothless and grey, sliding off doorways at a drug-designed angle pitched slant of gravity’s usual demands, walk-roll as if tracing paisley patterns on the sidewalk, in a manner a dancer might try and fail to replicate.
Your wings drop white from the counter-weight fly of the sky’s theater and you coast down to join the human audience that can’t pull away from watching the weird beauty of the normalcy-defying dance, performed to the music of your last-hope howls.
Please cry for me, as well. My son’s gone lost today. Sing in your coarse-scraped voice as I call his name, and I will swallow you down, my throat stripped raw with your wailing.
Catherine Broom Competition
Nard Claar Sunset
John Weeks
Paddling to Where the Sun Sets
Paddling the stand-up to where the sun sets, I escape both time and space. To my yoga friends I say “it’s the way I meditate” –the rolling elements and the reclining day.
If I’d paralleled the coast I’d have had my paddling paced by the imposing measures: how far, how fast, how large the homes –coordinates that plague the whole damned race.
Just now I am willfully tamed to this other route, an enchanting rosary – paddle greets and greets and greets the sea, quieting me beyond all doubt.
I come to myself the way a river flows out.
I come to myself the way a river flows out.
Alan Weltzien
Two Poems
Waltzing with Arlo
My two-month old grandson settles on my right shoulder or left and we swirl over
the polished wood floor of our son’s dining/living room in their Munich apartment.
He exhales on my ear, soft chuffs, and he chirps on an occasional inbreath,
sighs or he rubs his chin across a collarbone before his eyes close while I hum
during his first waltz lessons and his heart beats through my skin, arms splayed and lower legs
retracted, my sweet frog whose lips edge into smile, awake, when his eyes focus my long face,
track an old stranger, pleased to make your acquaintance, and I take the seat of grandfather,
warm and welcoming worn fabric easy chair old and new.
Jennifer Bisbing
Bitterroot Valley
Great Blue (Ardea hernodias)
I.
At a minus two tide great blues perch on edge of mudflats temporary statues spaced their prehistoric squawk rises above the gray dimples
But not this past summer.
Sun-spangled porch before 8:00 a.m. I cradle a tea mug and two bald eagles attack a great blue in the water. The smaller bald arcs off as the larger dives, talons stretched, the great blue screams “awk” and the eagle pummels, settles, grips the body and fans its own broad wings steady rhythm ashore beyond my sight, parody of rescue.
I forget to look over my shoulder. II.
On my final summer swim two days shy of Labor Day I backstroke towards shore chin vertical and a great blue slowly turns overhead and I swivel and we track one another: guardian spirit through three circlings before the heron wings southeast towards the mainland.
Melody Wilson
Interruption
It’s not yet seven but already warm and I’m walking the asphalt path beside the lake, earbuds in. The story I’ve downloaded reaches the point where the protagonist pushes open the thick thighs of her lover, says she is speaking in tongues, practicing her own kind of prayer, and I feel like I’m falling, no longer watching for ruptures in pavement, for humps where roots break through, when a screech shocks the other side of the sedge, and a heron, as if embarrassed, rises in stages, flap flap the narrative dangles like a primitive cry—not a woman not a bird maybe not even a sound but a split in time everything else before or after just fly fly fly.
—with reference to Deesha Philyah’s The
Secret Lives of Church Ladies
Jack Broom
Heron in Cottonwood
Alan Weltzien’s poetry collection Into the Khumbu was recently published by Cirque Press
Tonja Woelber
Glen Alps
After W.B. Yeats
I will arise and go now to wind-whipped hills above the valleys of Ship Creek, flocked with berry bushes dripping tang of arctic sun, black-fingered firs grasping thin tundra with twisted hands.
Icy creeks rush by, blend with songbird trills and mournful moose cries in a symphony of wildness arced by endless skies.
There is no sadness hiking a winding trail rimmed with moss and lupine, starry whites and bluebells, overflown by yellow moths and lazy curls of hawks.
Blare of horns and press of feet on busy concrete streets fade to silence at the thought that sweet content will soon be mine on a windblown mountaintop.
Robin Woolman Two Poems
Ill Wind
Dry leaves crab across this city street. Wind-prodded firs drop needles, stitching random amber patterns on black cracked asphalt. Seed cones and blighted fruit bombard the walkway. A few humans too are scattered here, blown from homes and hunkered under sodden blankets. All burdens to the street sweeper.
Text to My Daughter on Mother’s Day
In the shower this morning an earring slipped out. I caught it with my foot, crouched under the hammering water to rescue it from sluicing down the open drain. My mothering seems like all of these things: the earring, the foot, the crouch, the water, the open drain.
Cynthia Steele Rainbow Waterfall
You Are the Star in My Universe
Phyllis Green
FEATURES Artists of CIRQUE
Cynthia Steele
Capturing Images in a Journalist’s Shoes: An Interview with Photographer Jack Broom
In retiring from journalism, Seattleite Jack Broom is happily a novice once again. “I’m not an expert at all. But in the learning spot, as you know,” he states in our Seattle meeting.
His photographic inspiration comes partly from American photographer and conservationist Art Wolfe. Photographer Wolfe sees two different genres of photography: “Pre-visualizing an image or spontaneously reacting to an unfolding, unforeseen circumstance. “With one I feel like I am wearing the shoes of an artist and the other one a journalist,” he says. Jack Broom has worn both sets of shoes.
Wolfe started using photography to document hikes and climbs as a medium to share with friends about what it was like to be up on the glaciers on top of Mount Rainier. A conservationist, Wolfe’s The Living Wild took him on a three-year odyssey to 40 countries to record 140+ species and their habitats. Pure documentation turned into art. Broom is impressed by the ways Wolfe combined his UW painting major ideas with photography.
Encouraging Broom’s start with Cirque was his sometime golfing buddy, 32-year Seattle Times sportswriter Craig Smith, a member of the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association Hall of Fame. Smith now coaches his Cynthia Steele
words into poetry: an elemental verse that provokes resonance. Both former Times staffers have seen a bit of play in Cirque. In Broom’s case, the connection has earned him two covers and 60 photos over numerous issues.
Broom noted, “We’re always delighted to appear in the journal alongside each other. It’s always, you know, a thrill to get that note that says, ‘Here’s some pictures we want to use. Check the cut lines,’ from Mike [Burwell].”
On August 14, I visited Broom’s sun-drenched Seattle kitchen table as we poured over the copies of Cirque that contain his photos and covers that he had laid out and tabbed.
Broom and I share burgeoning photography aspirations in the ever-changing field. Our talk flooded my own news memories. I wrote as a freelancer pursuing my journalism degree and after for Alaska newspapers about the push for Official English laws nationwide and local and international adoption, including hard-won ICWA laws, and five stories as a murder trial stringer. As student editor, I reported on the growing homeless population, the new morning after pill, and Jimmy Carter’s plea for ANWR protection, and, yes I met Carter.
Broom did have a reception-line moment with Richard Nixon, who came to Seattle for a Republican fundraiser long after leaving the White House. In what Broom estimates as their 17 seconds together, they talked about the Seattle Mariners, largely because the team’s then-owner was a Nixon friend, California businessman George Argyros.
The newsman Broom, in his 39 years (1977-2016) at the Seattle Times, experienced more than his share of trauma as well: “From a small plane above Mount St. Helens in 1980, I watched the earth turn itself inside out.” A death-penalty reporter for a decade, he’d cover Ted Bundy’s execution and witness another execution, which spurred his quest for long walks and serene and transportive moments.
In the end, I understood, if just a smidge, Jack’s
Jack Broom at Dunn Gardens
comment that “if reporting were an endless string of tragedies, I don’t think I could have lasted.”
Because I can’t find a guy
Working on the student newspaper The Miter, in the Green Lake area at the coed Bishop Blanchet Catholic High School, had earlier triggered what would become Broom’s newspaper career. Broom didn’t start out using a quality camera when he was young, though.
Broom learned what he needed about photography only by necessity in the days of darkroom-required film rolls. He took pictures “only because I couldn’t find a guy, and, hopefully, they’re good enough. I likewise had photographers, but occasionally, no one was available, and I’d cover, which was not good if the subject was sports.”
Broom’s college years covered the basics of photography via journalism classes but he took no photography-specific courses. He once borrowed a Kodak Instamatic while in Europe with two friends one college summer. “The trip generated a shoebox of slides we’d haul out once a year for gatherings we called ‘Europe Night’ with appropriate food and beverage.”
In the 1970’s, as editor of the Western Washington University, campus paper, The Western Front, Broom interned using manual typewriters, scissors, red pencils and paste pots to “assemble” stories.
Expectations changed in his first job at The Wenatchee World, which required his use of a 35mm Pentax film camera because reporters had to take their own photos, but not develop or print them. Photo editor John Barta (“the darkroom guy”), did that and was the resident go-to for approaching photographing different situations. Being a reporter responsible for the stories’ photographs was challenging: “It seemed whenever I picked up the camera, the person I was interviewing would say something important, and I’d have to grab my notepad.”
Jack met his wife, Judy, at The Wenatchee World, where she was the church and food editor (“God and gut,” she would say). They’ve been together 40 years. She was once the superior photographer of the two, but “Not anymore!” she told me at their home. She’d soon take her journalism skills, like many, into the paralegal world, while he went on to The Seattle Times.
He acknowledges that Judy’s avid gardening and penchant for visiting botanical gardens when they travel made gardens, plants and flowers some of his first strong subjects.
“I didn’t know much about plants (still don’t), but
I do enjoy looking at their form, texture and color – and trying to capture it with my camera, including flowers and vegetables, which is Judy’s primary hobby and lifelong interest.” Jack has little to do with their garden, other than harvesting potatoes, which he finds to be like digging for buried treasure.
He and Judy had a succession of Canon PowerShot point-and-shoot cameras, ranging from a tiny PowerShot ELPH 180 camera with an 8x Optical Zoom to a rather bulky but more versatile PowerShot SX70 with 65x Optical Zoom and image stabilization.
Broom stressed that he is a digital camera aficionado because of the nearly limitless number of frames of a subject, which he describes as “not a luxury, but a necessity for photography as I know it. As I watched robins eating the red berries of a large cotoneaster shrub in our yard, I wanted to get a bird in flight as it emerged from the plant. That took 400 shots. I can’t imagine trying that with 36-frame film rolls.”
Broom’s first attempt to get more into photography involved getting the Canon T6i from Costco. And, now, unlike my own DSLR Canon EOS 5D Mark IV, Broom shoots with a mirrorless version: the EOS R5 — the first mirrorless he’s owned. The mirror of the DSLR camera reflects light from lens to optical viewfinder; a mirrorless captures light via a digital sensor and sends the preview to a viewfinder. Instant adjustments of a mirrorless make it superior in some respects, though battery life is not one of them.
Broom leveled up through taking courses by prominent photographers.
Getty Images-repped Robert Stahl, whose work appears in Eastman Kodak and National Geographic publications, taught Broom Introductory and Intermediate
Magnolia Moment
Digital Photography at North Seattle College. Broom gained other tools to advance his hobby from David E. Perry’s garden-photography class set at the University of Washington Center for Urban Horticulture.
Perry, whose images appear in The Northwest Gardening Manifesto, Gardening for Sustainability, and other books, encourages photographers to stop cluttering photographs and instead to “Simplify, simplify, simplify. Pare your pictures down to their barest possible essence… Move and shoot again, change angles until those distractions are no longer in your picture” (from The Hardy Plant Society of Oregon).
We discussed photographers he’s worked with through the Puget Sound Camera Club of Edmonds, part of the Northwest Council of Camera Clubs and the Photographic Society of America.
“There is a photographer, Darrell Gulin, who has done fascinating presentations at our camera club. I’ve also learned from other members of our club.”
Broom is a current member and past president of the PSCC and said the approximately 60 members range from relative newcomers to accomplished photographers with expertise in such areas as bird photography, landscapes, monochrome and infrared photography as well as photoediting tools such as Lightroom and Photoshop. The club hosts presentations from outside speakers.
On Broom’s walls are a few of his own photos and a watercolor-looking, fog-enfolding one of Gulin’s from Venice.
“When he comes to your group to talk, Gulin brings rolled up prints and gives them away. And he wants to see which ones go first, because he says he learns from that. So, we got the print and had it framed. And I love the
effect of those deep, deep reds and dark, muted colors.”
Another photo in Broom’s living room is a Milky Way scene photographed in the Cascades by Chris Currie, who succeeded him as president of the camera club two years ago. The club has held night-photography sessions, although Broom has not yet participated.
He said Currie also produces beautiful flower portraits and has patiently shown him some of the techniques she uses.
Although he learned a lot in three years as president of the club, he’s glad not to still have the administrative work that went along with it, which can take time away from actual shooting.
Turning to another photo on the wall, he notes it was taken by a friend of his, Ken Lambert, still a photographer at the Seattle Times. “He’s crossing the Hood Canal Bridge, and sees the rainbow go across the bridge. With his phone, as he’s driving, he shoots that picture. One of those right time, right place shots.”
Next, Broom turns to a photo in the hall: “This is by a very prolific member of our, club, Henry Heerschap, who does a lot of different things, but infrared is one thing that he’s really kind of into. This is a dahlia infrared.”
Broom admits that infrared is beyond his present skill set, then turns to a framed image of his own, one that has appeared in Cirque
“We were down at Ilwaco and Long Beach, and I knew the fishing boats went out in the morning. I had seen from years ago kind of a chain of fishing boats, charter boats or whatever, heading out in the dark in the morning, so I told Judy, ‘I’m going to get down there at 5:00 tomorrow. I want to get to see the fishing boats go out. Well, it was so foggy, you couldn’t see such a thing. There was no viewing of a chain of fishing boats to be had. I said, well, I better do something with the fog, of course. I was looking at these things, and then this bird flew by, and that was, I thought, well, that was a gift. It wasn’t until I blew it up that I saw all these other posts with birds on, too. Amazing isn’t it, how these show so clear. And there’s a hint of a boat down there. You really have to look. And that’s really a nice quality, isn’t it?”
I admitted it was and explained that night shooting is kind of my thing. I love the lighting effect of early morning and fog as well.
We finished the tour with an action shot. “This is by a now-retired Seattle Times photographer Alan Berner. And it’s a picture of, during the snow, some snowboarder down there at the Pike Market.”
Garlic
“Wow, how fun is that?”
“Yeah, yeah. That’s great. It’s not what you’d expect to see in a public market shot. No, we’re not throwing fish. We’re throwing snowboarders. There we go. Yeah.”
Photographing Gardens of Quilters
The photo expedition near Jack and Judy’s home in Broadview we’d agree upon beforehand—Dunn Gardens—is a place he often visits. The place sports quite a history and is a stunning botanical treasure. Well-tucked in North Seattle, the gardens originated when cannery owners Arthur and Jeannette Dunn purchased ten acres in 1914 that is now a privately-owned, nonprofit, publicinvite gardens. The membership requirement is like many botanical gardens. The Olmsted Brothers, whose legacy of 17 parks and multiple estates in the Seattle area (Green Lake and Gas Works among them), landscaped the land and instituted a planting plan. Edward Dunn, an authority on Pacific Northwest native plants, along with his sister, Dorothy, guided the development of the Japanese Gardens, designed by visionary Fujitaro Kubota of Kubota Gardens.
But reflective of the neighborhood it sits in, Broom said, the garden has typically seemed “pretty white.”
As part of an effort to broaden the garden’s reach, its leaders reached out a couple of years ago to an African American quilting group, the Pacific Northwest African American Quilters. The quilting group, with an active roster of 21, was invited to show their process and finished work at the gardens, and Broom was asked to photograph them. The group completes surface design, dyeing,
embellishment, fabric painting, soft sculpture, quilting and tapestry.
After a few work sessions, the gardens hosted an event open to the public with quilts on display, picnics on the lawn, music, and wine, and a The Seattle Times garden writer there to cover it.
Broom explained his part, “But they didn’t have a photographer available, so the garden’s director, Carolyn Cox, asked me if I would shoot the pictures, which ran in the Times’ Sunday Pacific NW Magazine.”
The importance of the event can be seen in the work of Annette Wadiyah Nelson of PNWAAQ, who displayed her work on “The Spring and Now Summer of My Discontent 2022.” Annette spent time at Vashon Artist Residency reflecting on her experiences in Ghana and Jamaica. She integrates fabrics, found objects and history to create artworks denouncing racism and sexism. Her advocacy continued as a counselor and now as a librarian at North Seattle College.
The event was a hit for the quilters and attending crowd. This past summer, they came back for a second show with more quilts.
Fog at IIwaco
Fading Fern
Even without newspaper coverage, the return event was significant, and Broom was glad to be asked to photograph it.
“Dunn Gardens reaching out to connect this, to broaden that space and kind of examine the proper role of a nonprofit to show the diversity in the broader community. It was fun to be part of that, so I went up and did the more recent one, which also provided pictures for their website.”
Sometimes Nature Insists on Being Seen
Another of Art Wolfe’s comments is that “Everything’s connected on this planet.”
Broom, whose photographs are most often of the natural environment, is a little more low-key about how his conservation views, other than contributing to the Sierra Club and the like. He’s hopeful about how his photography of wildlife and natural places may affect others. “My photography of plants and animals has heightened my appreciation of the natural world, and if it has a similar effect on those who see it, that is a positive.”
A curious-looking rooftop snowy owl is one of his favorite photographs and one that seemed to await his arrival.
“A friend of mine called from Queen Anne, and said, ‘There’s a snowy owl on a roof a couple blocks from our house.’ I said, ‘It’s going to take me a half hour at least to get down there,’ so I didn’t go. A week later, he said, ‘Are you going to come down and see this snowy owl?’ ‘You’re kidding,’ I said. ‘It’s still on the roof? Oh, my gosh.’”
The owl stayed there for a long time. It would night hunt at a nearby park. People looking to see it could find which alley to turn down by the presence of photographers and their tripods.
“There were four other photographers shooting it when I was shooting it. We were all shoulder to shoulder.”
I told Broom about the camera-friendly Anchorage White Raven. “Are you familiar?” He wasn’t. “The leucistic White Raven, dirty white and pale blue eyes drew about a dozen photogs, and I’d join them. Cirque’s got some of mine and of retired Anchorage Daily News photographer Mike Lewis. In Lewis’, a frozen stream of breath; in mine, a black and the white raven pace off.”
For Broom, taking photos is fun, challenging, and educational.
“Perhaps the most fun I had taking photos was at Seabeck on Hood Canal, where herons, eagles, crows and even gulls dip into the shallows for fish as the tide goes
Detail from “Beauty of Diversity” a quilt by Vera Petterson
out. There’s a lot of action and the birds are not very far away.”
“One thing I really enjoy is finding cool images in surroundings that are simple, close and at first glance, perhaps unremarkable.”
Still, he’s as drawn to gorgeous gardens as many of us are. A few he would return to are London’s Kew Royal Botanic Gardens and The Butchart Gardens outside Victoria, B.C. The places he knows he would love to photograph but hasn’t yet? The fall colors in New England and the coastal birds of Southwest Florida.
Although still an amateur, Broom’s success goes beyond Cirque and the photo club. He’s received awards at the Washington State Fair, Evergreen State Fair, Shoreline Arts Fair, the Mountlake Terrace “Arts of the Terrace” juried show, as well as through a digital-image competition of the Photographic Society of America and at the annual conference of the Northwest Council of Camera Clubs.
He has had two photographs published in the Reader’s Lens feature of the Sunday Pacific NW Magazine of The Seattle Times, which each week spotlights one readersubmitted image.
“I’ve also enjoyed the challenge of photographing birds, among my favorite subjects for notecards I produce, which are sold at Red Sky Gallery in Lake Forest Park.”
Broom’s experience as a late-blooming photographer is much like the Black-eyed Susan, still popping deep yellow into the autumn and finding new ways to catch our eye. As such, his bold statements encourage us: “In retirement, if you’re not learning, if you’re not growing, you’re dying.”
Retirement also means having the luxury of saying yes to a good cause, like Dunn’s Gardens or reading books with kindergarteners through Page Ahead, a nonprofit children’s literacy agency. “I’ll be bringing Pete the Cat: Rocking in My School Shoes, by Eric Litwin and James Dean to kindergarten and pre-k students in my monthly volunteer gig.” Although the Brooms did not have children, he is now experiencing a positive, grandfatherly role.
Snowy Owl
Heron Sees Something
Eagle Takes Flight
Wood Duck
Chain, Cirque Cover for Issue #17
Jack Broom
REVIEWS
Tanyo Ravicz
Writer as Guide, and Guide as Writer—A Review of Michael Engelhard’s What the River Knows: Essays from the Heart of Alaska (Hancock
All writers are guides, in a way, but few professional wilderness guides also happen to be gifted writers. Michael Engelhard guided for decades in both Alaska and the canyon country. What the River Knows: Essays from the Heart of Alaska pulls together pieces originally published in a dozen different journals and offers new work as well. An “autobiographical volume of essays covering three decades,” the book serves as a retrospective. In the first chapter we learn how Engelhard became a guide and why he stayed with it. We soon get a sense of Engelhard’s personality quirks and his preoccupations, his prickly honesty and humor. In short, What the River Knows makes an excellent introduction to Engelhard’s considerable body of writing.
In “Tough Times on Denali,” one of the book’s memorable essays, we vicariously climb Denali with our guide—I assure you it’s a thrill—but we also get a fascinating look into the subculture of Denali climbers. You may be a falconry fan or a winter bicycling nut or a natural hot springs connoisseur, but in any case, you’ll find a favorite in this wide-ranging collection. Engelhard weaves together natural history and human history, nature and culture, biology and anthropology, and shares with us his discoveries, his eureka moments, and his caring for the places and people he’s known.
House Publishers, 2024)
progresses from the pleasures and etiquette of picking wild berries with his wife, Melissa, to a consideration of the insanity of madcap mining development and reckless militarization. In “The Bounty of the Bone Pile,” we learn about polar bears and the impact of climate change on their habitat while also getting a glimpse of polar bear tourism and its impact on Inupiaq culture. Engelhard’s characteristic mode, in all of these essays, is to move outward from the personal to the social and to approach his subject from different cultural and scientific angles. Engelhard is a natural essayist. Fittingly, as a former river guide, he compares the essay, “a purling, fluid, highly excursive form,” to a river. His thoughts tumble forth and divide and merge again. Occasionally the sentences jar and dislocate the reader, and you feel like tapping your guide on the shoulder and asking him to slow down or repeat what he just said. The excitement reflects Engelhard’s mind as it relentlessly moves on. Thought itself becomes the exploration, and the capturing of thought in words the adventure.
In “Marginalia,” an essay on maps, we hear not only about Engelhard’s “cartographic obsession” and his solo, two-month trek through the Brooks Range, but also how Indigenous travelers and hunters navigated without paper maps. In “Berry-Pickers and Earthmovers,” Engelhard
The real adventure here—the ascent of Denali, the run-in with a grizzly bear, the excursions to fascinating places that most of us will never get to—makes for marvelous reading, but it never comes at the expense of an equally real tenderness. In “Tibet in the Talkeetnas,” the yaks are more than pack animals, they are the worthy subject of Engelhard’s close and respectful observation, the heart of his essay. His writing about nature, about landscape and wildlife, is always convincing, rooted in the senses, and this is what I like most about it. Engelhard’s love for Alaska beams from the pages.
Eric Braman
A Review of Sherri Levine’s I Remember Not Sleeping
(Fernwood Press, 2024)
Sherri Levine does not shy away from hard truth in the image-filled, multi-page exploration of I Remember Not Sleeping, a book comprised of her singular poem. Exploring time spent in a psychiatric ward in Prague, this poem is paired with dream-like visual art created by Moises Camacho. Like the poems, soft colors are juxtaposed with often shocking and disorienting imagery.
The poem itself is blunt, like memories pulled from trauma, each line feels like a sucker punch. From the imagery of being poked with needles in the middle of the night to witnessing a roommate swallow a crushed lightbulb, this poem is presented in a way that inspires shock. I imagine Levine did this intentionally, to provoke the day-to-day feeling of the psychiatric ward. In between the harsh revelations are related quotes from a wide range of poets: Dante, Roethke, and even Jimi Hendrix. As a reader, I was left wondering how much these writers helped Levine survive the harrowing moments as their words clearly serve a greater purpose than simple theme building. Each quotation leans into the moment of the story as a poetic release. They reveal how experiences of mental illness are deeply human, faced by many in their
own ways through time. I will admit, as a reader I don’t often care for epigraphs. However, in this book, they were expertly used.
Something I struggled with was the formatting of text and image page-by-page. Placement of text (isolated, centered, off-center, with picture, etc.) varies throughout the book and I had trouble identifying several of the intentions and choices. I believe the overall choice was made to further disorient and slow the reader, and at times it was done effectively to emphasize shock. For example, the line, “Someone always watched me in the shower with a flashlight,” was isolated on a two-page spread surrounded by nothing but whitespace. In this scenario and others like it the isolation of text worked brilliantly to force the reader to sit with the statement, literally needing to turn a page to move forward from the moment. However, in most other scenarios the text placement feels almost random, and textless pages with pictures sometimes feel disconnected. Don’t let that critique shy you away from Levine’s powerful work. This poem and its visual components build a story of resilience that shines through as each line, no matter how dark the topic, remains in the first-person. I Remember Not Sleeping isn’t about the nurses, doctors, or abusers, it is about the author telling their story of survival. This first-person nature is further emphasized in the way Camacho depicts the storyteller: the key focus of the compositions, radiating with a soft glow, surrounded by ghost-like figures or floating in a bleak metaphorical setting. Each image, like each line of the poem, requires the reader to pause and integrate. Each time I finished reading the poem, I was left balancing my heartache with a sense of awe and humility for the way this storyteller claimed her power.
FEATURE
Cynthia Steele
A Tale of Two Deaths—A Snake and a Late Amends: The Soirée Events of August 2024
Photos by Cynthia Steele
In a limited tour this August, the Pacific Northwest editor-trekkers Sandra Kleven and Cynthia Steele defied almost certain death to meet with people across the region on behalf of Cirque. As Grandfather Cuts Loose the Ponies silhouettes behind us on the hill, aka the Wild Horses Monument, Cynthia snapped photos of the mighty Columbia River, skirting snakes amidst a wicked three-digit day. While no snakes were visible, the signs that announced them as imminent could not be discounted. It could have happened. The roaring of the river was audible. As quickly as the moment of unbearable dry heat began, it ended just after a young Canadian photographer captured a stellar photo of Cynthia before she walked the long and winding, and narrow, trail, hollering out, “Don’t forget to submit! You’re in our region.” Grateful mostly for not passing out, she quickly hopped into the air-conditioned Grand Am and she and Sandra zoomed off to their next destination.
While Oregon lamented with them that they did not return to gather this year, Seattle welcomed them with its usual open arms. They stayed on the L & L Ranch of Larry and Lynda Humphrey. Lynda is the writer of Miss Bebe Comes to America fame, which they saw in one local bookstore there. At another store, they took contact information to replenish their sold-out copies. With sweat-dampened backs and coolers thankfully filled with drinks, they sat on a spacious, covered porch surrounded by bird-busy hummingbird feeders. They and the some-50 other celebrants memorialized the life of Larry who had passed away a year before. While the sound of his piano music played, family, friends, and a special granddaughter spent a few precious days of sharing stories, chatting, as well as playing Farkle, cribbage, and enjoying foods and keeping both his memory and spirit of welcome alive until the parting ebbed and flowed until there were few.
For this particular season, only two scheduled Cirque events followed, something they hope to top next season. The first event occurred at the setting of Christianne Balk and Karl Flaccus’ home, by public demand (John Morgan—to name names—who brought it up at the Kachemak Bay Writer’s Conference in Homer). Their home really begins at the sidewalk with a plethora of healthy gardens and then hosts in the dining room and a spacious back porch what we’ve typically called a soirée—an evening party or gathering in a private house. The editors revel in their Cirque Soirée term, but upon investigation, the event might be better referred to as a tertulianos, a social gathering with literary or artistic overtones where contertulios share their recent creations such as poetry, short stories, other writings, and even artwork or songs (It is suspected that perhaps only the contertulios themselves may enjoy this digression).
On this evening, after dipping into the multiple dishes, we sat comfortably watching the setting sun as Nancy Morgan looked up lovingly and with mirth as husband John read some of the comical notes of their long marriage, soon to be memorialized into the Cirque Press chapbook The Nancy Poems.
Nancy Morgan
14 No. 2
Much-published native New Englander Mary Eliza Crane, now a long-term Duvall, WA resident and one of the co-curators of Duvall Poetry, read in celebration of her new Cirque Press poetry collection Last Call of the Dark. Suzanne Edison, author of The Body Lives Its Undoing and The Moth Eaten World, teaches writing workshops for caregivers, patients, and medical providers. Edison read a moving poem immediately requested for submission as can happen in live readings at such gatherings.
Mary Ellen Talley, whose poem “She Rides the Athabasca” was a finalist in the Poetry of Motion Contest, read poems from her 2024 collection Taking Leave, published by Kelsay Books, in which she uses multiple poetic forms—acrostic, duplex, haibun, palindrome, and villanelle—to tell the story of her sister’s life. Lynda Humphrey read from her children’s book about the famous Bebe. Walt Whitman Award Winner Christianne Balk read from her work, and we’re quoting here from her blog page and the poem “Old Growth”: “If you're the madrone, I'm the salvaged pine. If you're the wetland, I'm the slope. If you're El Niño, I'm the solitary flicker.” We recognize her as judge of the Poetry in Motion Contest and appreciate her hosting the soirée.
John Morgan
Mary Ellen Talley, Suzanne Edison, and Lynda Humphrey
Elisa Carlsen
Diane Ray read and set up rehearsal times for her short play, “The Man with His finger in the Door” that appears in the last issue of Cirque. Sandra Kleven would play the character mother to Cynthia Steele’s daughter character. We had to say, “We had often been mistaken for sisters.”
Diane Ray
In the second event, a public-invited reading of Cirque and friends—literary writers, poets, and artists from Canada, the Northwest, and Alaska—joined hearts and shared work among themselves and with guests. The spacious Bothell United Methodist Church hosted the event the evening of August 16th to celebrate the journal’s first 15 years. Yes, “It is a good start” as the flyer notes. Cirque—the journal and Cirque Press—happen through the work of Alaska-based editors Sandra Kleven and Cynthia Steele and Sandra’s main partner Michael Burwell, participating from Taos, NM. Notably, they’re joined by a talented group of designers without which nothing would appear on paper in all its glory—Signe Nichols, Dale Champlin, Kari Odden, and Emily Tallman. On this evening, the winners of the Poetry in Motion contest, which had been oh-so-recently finalized by Christianne Balk, was celebrated with a Zoom reading of the winning entries in a Zoom launch of Cirque #27. The event hosted a bonus celebration of Cirque Press books with the formal launch of the dramatic Out of the Dark: A Memoir by Marian Elliott, who loses a son and then travels the East Coast of the US, then through Canada to the Native village of Toksook Bay. Other recently-released Cirque Press books celebrated were Kissing Kevin: An American Nurse In the Vietnam War by Sara Berg and Bury Me in Cherry Blossoms, a book of vulnerable romantic poetry by Eric Braman. Braman ranges from the hot sands beneath one's feet in “Memories of Cool Waters” to the gravity of falling dirt in “Show Me Your Sadness” to the flavors in “Pomegranate Vodka.” But a personal favorite (so far) is his ant poem that grew on me: “The Scent of Sweet” in which after crushing an ant, he thinks, “May this lavender cleanse me of my sins.” As do we all in our sometimes failed efforts to coexist with nature.
Finally, and in the nick of time, Ron McFarland, finally after asking for directions, made his way to the reading, much to the joy of Georgia Tiffany and all of us. He read from his Cirque Press poetry collection A Variable Sense of Things. McFarland had a nearly 50-year teaching career at the University of Idaho, where he acted as impresario of poetry readings, served as faculty advisor of the literary magazine Fugue, and helped create the MFA program. He and his wife Georgia Tiffany are prolific to a fault, wonderful readers and enjoyable companions.
And coming full circle, we begin on near death and end on after death. Diane Ray hosted one of the many highlights of the evening by directing her play “The Man with His Finger in the Door,” published in Cirque #27. This is the play in which Yiddish flourishes and a mother (Dena, played by Sandra Kleven) and a daughter (Anya, Played by Cynthia Steele) are on the same plane as the Angel of Death (Chris Keath) and the newly-deceased father/grandfather aka The Patriarch Morris (Paul Schoenfeld). Morris proves—once and for all—that he is not the schmuck in death that he was in life. Maya Ray read Stage Directions. The play went brilliantly and caught a few chuckles and warm feelings, as intended. This is the second play Cirque has performed. The first, about literary icon Theodore Roethke, came to life in “I Teach Out of Love,” multiple times performed in various places. Cirque plays are in our future, so submit!
Eric Braman
Other wonderful readers included Sherri Levine, Elisa Carlsen, DJ Lee, Amanda Hiland, Mike Hull, Craig Smith, Allison Spikes, Joel Savishinsky, Andrea Nicki (traveling from Canada), and Ari Blatt.
Finally, beware of snakes. Or shlang. There’s a Yiddish saying, “For a snake, you should have no pity”…Just to bring it full circle.
Heath, Paul Schoenfeld, Sandra Kleven, and Cynthia Steele
Craig Smith
Ron McFarland and Joel Savishinsky
Sherri Levine
Chris
in the reading of Diane Ray’s play “The Man with His Finger in the Door”
CONTRIBUTORS
Luther Allen lives and writes poems from Sumas Mountain, Washington. He co-facilitates the SpeakEasy reading series, is co-editor of Noisy Water: Poetry from Whatcom County, Washington, and is author of a collection of 365 poems, The View from Lummi Island, available at http:// othermindpress.wordpress.com. He led four other poets in a linked poem series culminating in A Spiritual Thread (https://www.villagebooks.com). His work is included in numerous journals and anthologies, including WA 129; Refugium, Poems for the Pacific; For Love of Orcas; Washington Poetic Routes; I Sing the Salmon Home; New Mexico Poetry Anthology 2023; and The Madrona Project – Human Communities in Wild Places; Art in a Public Voice; and The Empty Bowl Cookbook. His short story, “The Stilled Ring,” was finalist in an annual fiction contest at terrain.org. He views writing as his spiritual practice.
Alexandra Ellen Appel, and her brilliant Scottie rescue, write poems and other ditties from their den of non-inequities. They will keep at it until nothing remains.
Lana Hechtman Ayers, MFA, has shepherded over a hundred poetry volumes into print in her role as managing editor for three small presses. Her work appears in Rattle, The London Reader, Peregrine, and elsewhere. Lana’s collection, The Autobiography of Rain, is forthcoming from Fernwood Press in Fall 2024. Visit her at LanaAyers.com
Thomas R. Bacon lives in Sitka, Alaska. His work has appeared in The San Pedro River Review, About Place Journal, borrowed solace, Tidal Echoes, The Tiger Moth Review and Cirque Journal. He is a member of Blue Canoe Writers.
Nicole Bauberger is an artist of settler heritage who has made her home in the territories of the Kwanlin Dün First Nation and the Ta’an Kwäch'än council (aka Whitehorse Yukon) since 2003. Her multi-disciplinary practice includes visual art and performance as well as storytelling and poetry. Her visual art includes painting, drawing, sculpture, installation, all with a strong commitment to community arts. Find out more at www. nicolebauberger.com, #baubergernicole, @daltontrailtrailgallery, or @ nicolebauberger.
Donna Beaver is an Alaska Native (Tlingit/Tsimshian) poet and multidisciplinary artist, originally from Juneau, Alaska now living in North Carolina. She is co-producer and co-host of the podcast Haiku Chronicles.
Bisbing Books Founder Jennifer Bisbing is an award-winning book editor and photographer and nationally published poet. Raised by a renowned forensic scientist, Bisbing’s murder mystery Under the Pines (over 20,000 copies sold) reveals childhood memories of trips to the crime lab. With family dinner conversations notoriously leading to murder cases, it’s no surprise her poetry chapbook The Price of the Repair (Finishing Line Press, 2024) has a few lingering villains. She currently writes book reviews for Montana Quarterly and has edited over 150 books for several national and international publishers.
Rachel Blume is a writer from the Texas Gulf currently pursuing her MFA in Interior Alaska. A writer and a mom, her work can be found or is forthcoming in Glass Mountain, Flora Fiction, and Continue the Voice
Eric Braman (they/them) is a poet, storyteller, and theatre maker based in Springfield, Oregon. Their work has been published by High Shelf Press, Qu Literary Magazine, Moon Tide Press, The Coachella Review, and more. Braman released the album “By Your Side” in collaboration with musician Cullen Vance, has performed on stages across the United States, and is an arts administrator supporting community events and education. His poetry collection Bury Me in Cherry Blossoms was recently published by Cirque Press. Learn more at www.ericbraman.com
Catherine Broom, a Washington native, enjoys the colors nature offers. Following a 40+ year career in healthcare and academics, she now strives to be outdoors whenever possible. Taking a walk means stopping to look.
Jack Broom is a Seattle native who retired in 2016 after 39 years as a reporter and editor at The Seattle Times. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Western Washington University in 1974. His work in photography began in the 1970s as a reporter/photographer for The Wenatchee World, where he worked before going to The Seattle Times in 1977. In recent years, his photographs have won awards at state-fair competitions in Washington and have been featured in previous issues of Cirque. He is a past president of the Edmonds-based Puget Sound Camera Club.
Sharon Brown: My husband and I have lived and raised our children in the beautiful Pacific Northwest for nearly 40 years. A retired college English teacher, I recently joined the Greenwood Poets Group in Seattle, Washington and have begun honing my craft with the enriched perspective of an older woman. Previous poetry publications include Shist Magazine, Windfall: A Journal of Poetry of Place, and Lamar University Literary Press, Senior Class: Poems on Aging (upcoming publication).
Cindy Buchanan was raised in Alaska, has a B.A. in English from Gonzaga University, and was a preschool teacher until she retired. She studies poetry at Hugo House in Seattle, Washington where she currently lives, and is a member of two monthly poetry groups. Her work has been published in Cirque, Chestnut Review, Evening Street Review, The MacGuffin, Hole in the Head Review, and other journals. Her first chapbook, Learning to Breathe (Finishing Line Press), was published in 2023. Find her at cindybuchanan.com
Susan Campbell arrived in Fairbanks, Alaska thirty-five years ago and found home. Her life as a poet, teacher, book artist, and outdoor adventurer is tethered to the Far North. Her poems have appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review; Ice Floe II: International Poetry of the Far North; PoetryAlaskaWomen; Shaping the Landscape: A Journal of Writing by Alaskan Teachers, and in a specially commissioned musical score.
Doug Capra writes from Seward, Alaska. He’s the author of The Spaces Between: Stories from the Kenai Mountains to the Kenai Fjords; the Forewords for two illustrated books by American artist Rockwell Kent, Wilderness: A Journal of Quiet Adventure in Alaska, and Northern Christmas published by Wesleyan University Press; and many historical articles, essays, poetry and a few plays. In 2023 the Alaska Historical Society presented him with the Evangeline Atwood Award for his work. After a career teaching high school and college, he worked for many years as a ranger at Kenai Fjords National Park.
Teri White Carns publishes photographs, as well as haibun and tanka prose. She also writes law review articles and reports on justice system research, and holds an MFA from Antioch University in LA (2017). She has lived in Anchorage, Alaska for fifty-some years, with childhood and college roots in southwest Michigan.
Born and raised in Montana’s beautiful Flathead Valley, J Carraher is a San Francisco Bay Area writer whose recent work appears in such venues as Severance Magazine, Stanza Cannon, Cirque & others. In 2023 she was awarded the Sunspot Lit Rigel best of essay and Goldilocks Zone best of poetry. J studied folklore at UC Berkeley and holds a Masters of Science from UC San Francisco. She works as a sexual assault forensic examiner for Sonoma County.
Dale Champlin, a Pushcart Prize nominee and OPA first prize winner in the members category, is an Oregon poet with an MFA in fine art. Dale has poems in Cirque, The Opiate, Timberline, Triggerfish Critical Review, Willawaw, Pif, and many other journals and anthologies. Dale has three poetry collections: The Barbie Diaries, Callie Comes of Age, Cirque Press, 2021, and Isadora. Three collections: Leda, Medusa, and Andromina, A Stranger in America are forthcoming.
Susan Chase-Foster lives and writes near the Salish Sea in Bellingham, WA, but hangs out with her assorted family members in Alaska, British Columbia, Taiwan, Mexico and New Zealand, and Spain. She is the author of Xiexie Taipei, a collection of poems and photos from Taiwan, where her son lives. Susan’s poems have appeared in many anthologies and literary journals, including I Sing the Salmon Home, For Love of Orcas, and her favorite, Cirque. Susan is currently training to walk and write along El Camino de Santiago de Compostela in Spain with her daughter.
Margaret Chula has published fourteen poetry collections including, most recently, Firefly Lanterns: Twelve Years in Kyoto. This haibun memoir received a 2022 NYC Big Book Award in Multicultural Nonfiction. A featured speaker and workshop leader at haiku conferences around the world, she has also served as president of the Tanka Society of America, Poet Laureate for Friends of Chamber Music, and on the Advisory Board for the Center for Japanese Studies. Maggie lives in Portland, Oregon, where she hikes, swims, gardens, and creates flower arrangements.
Nard Claar, nardclaar.com, is an art teacher and artist working in 2D and 3D expressive work. His work is available at art galleries in several states. His inspiration comes from the natural world.
Daniel Penner Cline is a Mexico born, California raised, New York based painter, playwright, filmmaker, and co-host of the podcast Cutting For Sign. As a student athlete, he studied in Australia and Alaska and earned a degree in journalism. He has also lived in Hawaii and Oregon and all of these dramatic places have given form to his inner world. His art depicts emotional landscape and personal mythologies drawn from the defining experience of witnessing his mother's murder when he was four and the ensuing adventure of healing that came from it. Daniel has dedicated his life to creating stories and images that help others arrive to embrace and hopefully express themselves. To celebrate a day’s work, he partner dances and plays blues piano.
Lucy Cotter is an Irish-born writer and curator, living in Portland, Oregon, where she is a project resident at Stelo Arts and Culture Foundation 2023- 4. She has published internationally in art and cultural journals and is a regular contributor to academic books and exhibition catalogs. She is currently completing a hybrid prose poetry memoir engaging with trauma, silence, and the shape of memory.
Mary Eliza Crane lives in the woods in the Cascade foothills in western Washington. A regular feature at Puget Sound readings, she has read poetry from Woodstock to LA, and internationally with Siberian poets in Russia. Mary has two volumes of poetry, What I Can Hold In My Hands and At First Light published by Gazoobi Tales Press. Her work has appeared in many journals and northwest anthologies, including Raven Chronicles, WA 129 Poets of Washington (2017) and Bridge Above the Falls (2019), and has been translated into Russian. Mary co-curates and co-hosts the monthly Duvall Poetry reading series. Her poetry collection Last Call of the Dark has just been published by Cirque Press.
Lucas Cunningham: I wrote "Beartop" after a horse-packing trip in the wilderness of Western Montana. I visited this lookout (actually called Beartop) and tried to envision what it was like when it was still manned. I’m a writer and filmmaker from Bellingham, WA. My work has previously been featured in Agave Review, The Golden Antlers, and the Sue C. Boynton Poetry Contest. Currently, I’m an MFA student in Screenwriting at DePaul University in Chicago, where I also run Division 1 track and cross-country. I graduated from Pomona College with double majors in Environmental Physics and Media Studies, and I like telling stories that explore our relationship with nature and with each other.
Eileen Walsh Duncan’s work recently appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Pleasure Boat Studio’s zine Lights, Ramblr Online, the anthology Rewilding: Poems for the Environment, and the city of Shoreline’s Voices in the Forest installation. She received the Bentley Award from Seattle Review and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.
Judith R. Duncan is an avid hiker, poet, and retired software developer who currently lives on the north side of Lost Mountain on the Olympic Peninsula, Washington. She participates in public poetry readings at the Blue Whole Gallery, and the Friday Open Mic in Sequim, Washington. Judith’s poems have appeared in Metaphor Dice, Hummingbird, Cirque, and Tidepools
Michael Engelhard is also the author, most recently, of the National Outdoor Book Award-winning memoir Arctic Traverse and of the Grand Canyon essay collection No Walk in the Park. His work has appeared in publications like Sierra, Outside, Audubon, Backpacker, National Parks, and the Times Literary Supplement. Trained as an anthropologist, he worked for twenty-five years as an outdoor instructor and wilderness guide in the Desert Southwest and Alaska.
Mary Francesca Fontana was born in Louisiana but grew up in central Washington state. She spent formative years on the US-Mexico border and in California's Bay Area before returning to Washington to work as a research scientist and raise her two children near family. Now in Seattle, she is writing a narrative history of migration across the US-Mexico border, as seen through the migrant hospitality network she's volunteered with for the past two decades. Her poetry and prose have been published in The Sun, Moss, Prairie Schooner, The Seneca Review, The Seattle Review, and elsewhere. IG: MaryFontanaWrites
Mary George lives in Akiachak, a village along the Kuskokwim River in southwest Alaska. She teaches language arts to high school students.
Lenora Rain-Lee Good is a Walla Walla sweet onion. Peel a fleshy leaf and you may laugh, the next and you may cry, and then laugh some more. She also tells stories, both real and imagined, like segments of a perfect Texas Pink Grapefruit giving a sweet tartness in every read. Reach her at https:// coffeebreakescapes.com
David A. Goodrum, photographer/writer, lives in Corvallis, Oregon. His photography has graced the covers of several art and literature magazines, including Cirque, and appeared in many others. In the quickness of our modern lives, we often lose the small details as we step over them, look away, stare straight ahead, distract ourselves with devices. Instead, these photos are from experiences of pausing and contemplation. His poems have been published in Cirque, Tar River Poetry, The Inflectionist Review, Cathexis Northwest Press, Willawaw Journal, Triggerfish Critical Review, among others. Other publications include a chapbook, Sparse Poetica (Audience Askew, 2023) and a poetry book, Vitals and Other Signs of Life (The Poetry Box, 2024). See additional work, both photos and poems, at www. davidgoodrum.com
Leanne Grabel is a writer, illustrator and performer. She has been in love with mixing genres for the past 48 years. Grabel has written and produced numerous multi-media shows, including “The Lighter Side of Chronic Depression” and “Anger: The Musical.” Grabel's graphic memoir, Brontosaurus Illustrated, was published by The Opiate Books in 2022. My Husband's Eyebrows, illustrated prose poems, was published by the Poetry Box in 2022. Grabel’s newest work, Old With Jokes, a performance and chapbook, was created for ArtLab 2023. Grabel is the 2020 recipient of the Bread & Roses Award for contributions to women's literature in the Pacific Northwest.
Phyllis Green is an author, playwright, and artist. Her art can be found at ArLiJo 123, Cinematic Codes Review, Talking River (cover and featured artist), Midwest Zen, Rip Rap, Rathalla, Inscape, Superpresent, Agapanthus Collective, and other journals.
A child of the Azores and Europe, Paul K. Haeder ended up in Arizona, in the Chiricahua Mountains as a newspaper reporter in Bisbee. He followed that avocation to Washington, Oregon, Mexico, Vietnam, Central America. He’s widely published as a nonfiction writer, storyteller and poet. His collection of short stories, Wide Open Eyes: Surfacing From Vietnam, was published by Cirque Press in 2020. He’s got novels under his belt, and lots of narratives from south of the USA border ready for unpacking. His penchant for social and environmental justice takes him places most people fear to travel. He’s been a college teacher, social worker, homeless veteran advocate, and faculty union organizer. He lives on the edge of the Pacific, in Oregon, with a wife, snake and cat. He is Projects Editor for Cirque
Jim Hanlen: Abandoned Mine magazine recently printed Jim’s poem “The Tree Line.” He reads his poem “Other People’s Dogs” beside his wife, Brenda’s, painting of a dog at the Kaffee Klatsch in May. He attends the weekly Creative Writing class at the Anchorage Senior Center. Jim has written several poems about caregiving for Alzheimer folk, including his mom, dad and mother-in-law. Jim graduated from Gonzaga University, and received a Master in Reading, and retired from teaching in Washington state and lives in Anchorage, AK. Jim has poems in English Journal, GRRR, An Anthology of Bears, Practice of Peace, Rattle, 13 chairs and Weathered Pages He was nominated for a Pushcart prize. His poems have also appeared in Kerf Magazine and Cirque
Annekathrin Hansen grew up near the rugged Baltic Sea beaches in North East Germany. She attended Waldemar Kraemer’s drawing and painting classes at Art School in Rostock and Heiligendamm, Germany. She studied and received an Engineering degree and worked in Germany and Australia. Anne interpreted aerial photos and created many types of maps in land surveying. She is skilled in sculpturing, photography, print making, painting, mosaic and mixed media. Anne graduated from various workshops. Further self-studies led to her recent artwork. In 2010 she moved to Alaska. Her artwork can be seen at Georgia Blue Gallery and IGCA.
Bonnie J. Harris is a writer, musician, and teacher living in Gustavus, Alaska, near Glacier Bay National Park. A poet, essayist, and story writer, she received a National Bedford Prize for writing and has been published by St. Martin’s Press. As a life-long Alaskan traveling Alaska’s wild coasts, she has developed a unique relationship with the natural world and changes occurring there. Her work includes reflections on post-glacial plant succession, morphing landforms, melting glaciers, and backyard bears. Her current work in progress, from the perspective of a lifetime of solo sea kayaking in northern Southeast Alaska, is called Shorelines.
Aside from her avocations of photography, adventure travel, reading, writing, and gardening, Beth Hartley travels as an Alaska Statewide Mentor who supports early career and new-to-Alaska teachers all around Alaska. She meets extraordinary beings – human, animal, and vegetable – and marvels at the magnificent landscapes she flies over in small planes (and big ones). She loves travelling in bush planes! Beth has previously published poems and photography in Cirque, and has published poetry, short stories, research, and academic articles over the years.
Charles Hertz is a retired gastroenterologist, who has traveled to some 30 countries on all 7 continents in the past 20 years, photographing wildlife, people and places.
Bob Hicks has written poetry, essays, and a novel. He has been included in a number of publications, including Cirque. He left his career, most recently in Public Health, to work in a transitional educational program for young adults with disabilities. He lives in Bellingham, WA and can never imagine leaving.
Tamara Holman is a poet, writer, and archaeologist based in Kenai, Alaska. She writes poetry, historical fiction, and creative nonfiction. She is currently writing a historical fiction novel about her Minnesota pioneer family. Tamara's other creative pursuits include fiber arts and photography. She is happiest when she is far away from social media and knitting at her yurt in the woods. Her poetry has been featured or is forthcoming in Alaska Women Speak, Big Wing Review, and Practicing Anthropology
Barbara Hood is a retired attorney and businesswoman who writes personal essays, commentaries and poetry from her home in Anchorage, Alaska. She is a long-time member and past board president of 49 Writers, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting Alaska’s writing community.
Jaqualyn Johnson is a grateful resident of Cle Elum Washington. She has published poetry in Shrub-Steppe Poetry Journal, Yakima Coffeehouse Poets, and Cirque: A Literary Journal for the North Pacific Rim. Poetry provides a spaciousness to enter, looking for what can’t be contained, a world without borders. She completed a memoir, The Girl Who Fell from the Clouds and is currently working on a novel of historical fiction. When not writing, Jaqualyn is reading and most likely hiking, celebrating nature. She lives with her husband and cat and enjoys winter more than she probably should. Visit her blog: jaqualynjohnson@blogspot.com
Jill Johnson splits her time between Alaska and Eastern Oregon. Feels lucky.
Susan Johnson writes in the Central Cascade Mountain town of Roslyn, Washington where she taught in the local schools and nearby university and participated in state and national writing initiatives. Her work has appeared in Cirque Journal, Abbey of the Arts Monk in the World, Earth’s Daughters, Raven Chronicles, Shrub-Steppe Journal, Yakima Coffeehouse Poets, as well as other online and print journals. Her chapbook, The Call Home, a finalist for the 2022 Poetry Box Chapbook Competition, was published by The Poetry Box.
Karen Jones is a teacher, poet, and life-long learner from Corvallis, Oregon. Recent poems have appeared in Humana Obscura and Book of Matches Her chapbooks include Seasons of Earth and Sky (Finishing Line Press) and Gold Ray (Kelsay Books).
Jan Jung lives in Bellingham, Washington with her husband John and their delightful dog Toby. She has worked as a licensed mental health professional and as a teacher in elementary and special education settings. She enjoys walking in nature, making music, photography, and spending time with her three children and six grandchildren. Jan continues to search for images that might otherwise go unnoticed. Her photos have been featured in the book Bridges Cloud, Cottage Magazine, and Cirque
Laura Kalpakian is the award-winning author of many novels and five collections of prize-winning stories. Her short fiction has appeared in literary journals, magazines and anthologies internationally. Recent publication: The Great Pretenders (PRH/Berkley, 2019) and Memory Into Memoir: A Handbook For Writers (University of New Mexico Press, 2021) a Gold Medalist in the 2022 Independent Press Awards. She has won a Pushcart Prize, the PEN West Award, and an NEA Fellowship in Fiction; and twice the Pacific Northwest Booksellers’ Award. She has taught creative writing at the University of Washington and Western Washington University.
Taya Sanderson Kesslau has filled a wide variety of roles throughout her life. From being a homeschool mother and CFO of a music business, to working at an animal shelter and practicing as a Reiki master. She recently self-published her first book of poetry called Seven Year Silence, a chronicle of divorce. She resides in Bellingham, Washington with her new husband and family where she enjoys writing every day.
Royal Kiehl was born on the Great Lakes during the time of burning rivers and the sea lamprey invasion. He grew up in a nearby agricultural community notable mainly for the fact that not very much ever happened there. He moved to Alaska in 1974 and continues to live there, working as a psychiatrist and writing poetry and short stories. Dr. Kiehl is not a published writer, and as such can neither be considered “up-and-coming” nor “significant.” However, he unashamedly loves his own writings and hopes that others might also enjoy them.
Dave Kiffer is a fourth generation Ketchikan resident who is a historian, teacher, musician, journalist, and the current mayor of the City of Ketchikan. He grew up on a commercial salmon troller and has been coming and going ever since, spending time in Boston, Los Angeles. Wyoming and Ireland, but always coming back home.
Janet R. Klein is celebrating over 50 years in Alaska. Her writings and photographs focus primarily on the natural and cultural history of Kachemak Bay although her latest book is about Alaska Dinosaurs and Other Cretaceous Creatures. It was co-authored with Deborah Klein, her daughter, and contains scientifically accurate descriptions of Alaska dinosaurs. During her 40-year career working in Alaskan museums, Janet worked primarily in Homer and Anchorage. In retirement she’s enjoying her grandsons, volunteering in Homer, and exploring the abundant fossil flora of lower Cook Inlet.
Joseph “Josh” Kleven, an artisan and photographer based in Cheney, Washington, draws inspiration from his Alaskan roots. Known for his craftsmanship, Kleven combines new materials with rare wood to create gallery quality Adirondack chairs and related designs. Recently, his work has gained attention for its artistry and functionality. As a photographer, Kleven captures the natural world with a keen eye, further showcasing his creative versatility and passion for the world outside his door.
Sandra L. Kleven is a poet, publisher, and creative force in Alaska’s literary scene. Known for her evocative poetry, Kleven captures the rugged beauty of Alaska’s landscapes, as well as the intensity of human connection. As publisher of Cirque, a journal celebrating writers and artists of the North Pacific Rim, she fosters a vibrant community of voices often overlooked in mainstream literature. Her work delves into themes of resilience, nature, and cultural identity, creating poems that resonate with clarity and emotional depth. Kleven’s commitment to storytelling has made her an influential figure in regional and contemporary poetry. Author of several books, Defiance Street: Poems and Other Writing, is a good starting point for readers.
Robin Koger is an Alaskan born and raised retired English teacher, holding a B.Ed. and membership in the Alaska Writers Guild, with twentyfive published poems. She has found recent success, since retiring from teaching, with Susitina Writer’s Voice, The FisherPoets Gathering 2023 and 2024, and Alaska Women Speak, as well as being short listed for the inaugural issue of Big Wing Review. She first became aware of Cirque after meeting Cynthia Steele at the 2022 Kachemak Bay Writers Conference. Memories, sensations, and observations of nature and relationships inspire Robin’s work, which is typically done at her cabin, approximately forty miles from the summit of Denali, and at fish camp at the base of the active volcano, Mt. Iliamna.
Mercedes Lawry: I’ve previously published poems in such journals as Poetry, Alaska Quarterly Review, Nimrod, and Another Chicago Magazine. I’ve published three chapbooks: There are Crows in My Blood; Happy Darkness; and In the Early Garden With Reason which was selected by Molly Peacock for the 2018 WaterSedge Poetry Chapbook Contest. My poetry book, Vestiges, was published by Kelsay Books in 2022. My collection, Small Measures, will be published in 2024. I’ve also published short fiction as well as stories and poems for children.
David M. Laws grew up in Montana and moved to Seattle in 1968. He repaired musical instruments for parts of five decades, and upon retiring, graduated from Western Washington University in 2005, with a degree in English—Creative Writing Emphasis. He currently is part owner of a music store, plays saxophone, and directs a 23-piece big band, where he constantly notes the similarities between good jazz and good poetry.
Eric le Fatte was educated at MIT and Northeastern University in biology and English. He has worked correcting library catalog cards in Texas, and as the Returns King at Eastern Mountain Sports in Massachusetts, but currently hikes, writes, teaches and does research on tiny things in the Portland, Oregon area. His poems have appeared in Rune, The Mountain Gazette, The Poeming Pigeon, The Clackamas Literary Review, The Raven Chronicles, Windfall, Verseweavers, US#1 Worksheets, Perceptions, Clover, Tiny Seed Literary Journal, Clade Song, Deep Wild, Pangyrus, Cathexis Northwest, Canary, and happily enough, in Cirque.
Sherri Levine is a poet who lives in Portland, Oregon. Her poem, “Facedown,” won the Lois Cranston Memorial Prize (Calyx). She won First Prize (Poet’s Choice) in the Oregon Poetry Association Biannual Contest in 2017. Her work has been published in Prairie Schooner, The Timberline Review, CALYX, Driftwood Press, Poet Lore, The Opiate, Verseweavers, Cirque, Clackamas River Review, The Sun Magazine, and others. Sherri is the creator and host of Head for the Hills, a poetry series and open mic. Her full-length poetry collections include Stealing Flowers from the Neighbors (Kelsay Press, 2021), A Joy to See (Just a Lark Books, 2023), and I Remember Not Sleeping published by Fernwood Press in 2024.
Valkyrie Liles: I am a homesteader and writer living in the Cascade Siskiyou National Monument in Southern Oregon. My writings are commentary on current times and culture through the lens of my deep love for the natural world.
Dan MacIsaac writes from Vancouver Island. Brick Books published his collection, Cries from the Ark; and in 2022 Alfred Gustav published his chapbook, Jazz Sessions. His poetry has appeared in many journals, including The American Journal of Poetry, Stand, and Artemis
Michael Magee: My most recent book Budapest After Dark has just been published by Open Sesame Gallery/Books. Terra Firma; Sacred Ground was published in 2022 by MoonPath Press. Recent work has appeared in Sailor's Review #24 and Purr and Yowl an anthology of poetry about cats. My travels have taken me to Hungary, Czech Republic, Austria, Denmark, Greece, Turkey and Morocco. I live in Tacoma, Washington.
A former high school English teacher, Phyllis Mannan lives with her husband and daughter in Manzanita, on the North Oregon Coast. She has received a Literary Arts Fellowship in Poetry and has published a poetry chapbook, Bitterbrush (Finishing Line Press). Her poems have appeared in Cloudbank, North Coast Squid, The Oregonian, Rain Magazine, Verseweavers: The Oregon Poetry Association Anthology of Prize-winning Poems, Willawaw Journal and elsewhere.
Jayne Marek watched a wasp building a mud nest in the ground last year. She has published writings and art photos in Rattle, Salamander, Bloodroot, One, Chestnut Review, Typehouse, Northwest Review, Spillway, Calyx, and elsewhere. Her poetry collections include In and Out of Rough Water (2017) and The Tree Surgeon Dreams of Bowling (2018), with two more full-length books currently in production. She has lived in Port Townsend, Washington since the summer of 2015.
Doug Margeson is a former newspaper reporter from Seattle, Washington. In his career as a newspaperman, Margeson won 184 regional and 28 national journalism awards; 212 in all. He was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in investigative reporting in 1985. His first novel, Gazing at the Distant Lights, was published by W&B Books in 2021. Margeson’s fiction short stories have been published in The Chaffin Journal, The MacGuffin, 580 Split, Straylight, Worcester Review, The Homestead Review, SNReview, Soundings East, New Millennium Writings and Cirque magazines. His creative nonfiction has been published in The Palo Alto Review and The Santa Clara Review Margeson has taught as a guest lecturer at the University of Washington and for the Pacific Northwest Writers Conference, the Washington Journalism Educators Association and the Washington Press Association. In 1983, he was given the press association’s Superior Performance Award for his work with the state’s student press. Margeson is a graduate of the University of Washington and served in the Marine Corps during the Vietnam War. He lives in Woodinville, Washington.
Shirley Martin writes harbourside in Ucluelet, inspired by her rugged west coast surroundings. She has published five children’s books. Her articles can be found in the Westerly News and WordWorks Magazine. Her poetry has been published in a handful of anthologies, including Worth More Standing (Caitlin Press, 2022) and Laugh Lines (Repartee Press, 2023).
David McElroy is a retired commercial pilot of small planes in the Arctic and a former smokejumper, fisherman, taxi driver, and English teacher. He is the author of four books of poetry, Making It Simple (Ecco), Mark Making (Finishing Line), Just Between Us (University of Alaska Press), and Water the Rocks Make (University of Alaska Press). He has been published in regional and national journals such as Alaska Quarterly Review, Cirque, Anteaus, Poetry Northwest, and Chicago Review. He is a recipient of the Andy Hope award for poetry.
John McKay continues to practice law in Anchorage, Alaska, when he should be writing poetry. He has been thinking a lot lately about whether, when a giant tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to remember it…
Karla Linn Merrifield has 16 books to her credit. Following her 2018 Psyche’s Scroll (Poetry Box Select) is the full-length book Athabaskan Fractal: Poems of the Far North from Cirque Press. Her newest poetry collection, My Body the Guitar was nominated for the 2022 National Book Award. She is a frequent contributor to The Songs of Eretz Poetry Review. Web site: https:// www.karlalinnmerrifield.org/; blog at https://karlalinnmerrifeld.wordpress. com/; Tweet @LinnMerrifiel; https://www.facebook.com/karlalinn. merrifield.
Lalo Morales is a writer and EMT residing in Fairbanks, Alaska. His writing, shaped by time spent between Alaska, México, and Guatemala, explores themes of memory, displacement, and renewal. Lalo's work currently includes both short stories and poetry. This is his first publication.
John Morgan: In addition to Cirque, my poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, APR, The Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, The Paris Review, The New Republic, and many other journals. I’ve published eight books of poetry, as well as four chapbooks and a collection of essays. I won the Discovery Award of the New York Poetry Center, The Quarterly Review of Literature Poetry Prize, and first prize in the Carolina Quarterly poetry contest, among other awards, and was a writing fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. In 1976, I moved with my family to Fairbanks, Alaska to direct the creative writing program at the University of Alaska. I’m still there. His poetry chapbook, The Nancy Poems, has just been published by Cirque Press.
Linda B. Myers won her first creative award in the sixth grade Clean Up, Fix Up, Paint Up contest. Decades past. Then one day she traded snow boots for rain boots and moved from a marketing career in Chicago to Washington's Olympic Peninsula where she is now part of the old growth. She has published ten novels, is newish to poetry, writes a monthly op/ ed piece for the Sequim Gazette, and is a co-founder of Olympic Peninsula Authors, a group devoted to promoting the many fine authors out here in the wild. Her first poem for Cirque is to appear in this issue, and she is crazy-dance-in-the-moonlight excited.
Steve Neuberger has lived on the west coast for the past forty-seven years and in Ashland, Oregon for the past twenty years. He is a retired union and community organizer. He sees his poetry as the exploration of questions that can't be answered by Google. He has found that his work evokes memories and rich discussion with his readers, and, in this sense, he remains an "organizer." His work has been published in the Jefferson Monthly and the Medford Daily Tribune
Judy Nyerges: I am a Whidbey Island, Washington gal, born in Seattle, raised in Bothell (GO COUGS '63), who spent half her adult life in Michigan and who left the Salish Sea and finally landed in Arlington, Virginia. My cat Lily and I live in the city now, on the 19th floor of a high rise, with whales, no owls, no orcas, no coyotes, and only a few eagles to ward off homesickness for the PNW.
Mary Odden is a writing teacher and author from Nelchina, Alaska. Her work has appeared in Alaska Magazine, the Georgia Review, Northwest Review, Nimrod, Alaska Quarterly Review, Cirque Journal, About Place Journal, and Under Northern Lights, an anthology of contemporary Alaska art and writing. Her book of memoir/essays, Mostly Water: Reflections Rural and North, was published by Boreal Books, an imprint of Red Hen Press, in 2020.
Dion O'Reilly’s debut collection, Ghost Dogs, was shortlisted for The Catamaran Prize and The Eric Hoffer Award. Her second book, Sadness of the Apex Predator, was chosen by University of Wisconsin's Cornerstone Press for its Portage Poetry Series of new and emerging voices. Her work appears in The Sun, Rattle, Cincinnati Review, The Slowdown, Verse Daily and elsewhere. She is a podcaster at The Hive Poetry Collective, leads workshops, and is a reader for Catamaran Quarterly. She spent most of her twenties living in Washington and now splits her time between a ranch in the Santa Cruz Mountains and a residence in Bellingham, Washington.
Dixie Partridge, a native of Wyoming, spent most of her adult life living along the Columbia River in Washington State. Her poetry has appeared in anthologies and many journals, including Poetry, The Georgia Review, Midwest Quarterly, Ploughshares, and Southern Poetry Review. Her first book, Deer in the Haystacks, is part of the book series Poetry of the West, Ahsahta Press. Her second, Watermark, won the national Eileen Barnes award. She has served as poetry editor or reviewer for two journals and co-edited a regional anthology in the Northwest. Personal impact of landscape is most often at the root of her writing.
Tami Phelps: I am a visual artist who has called Alaska home for over five decades. My cold wax paintings have received international and national recognition, including the London Art Biennale 2023, and the U.S. 5th Annual National Climate Assessment Report from Washington, DC, 2023. My artwork is influenced by a 20-year teaching career as a public Montessori teacher and the pedagogy of Dr. Maria Montessori. Music, nature, relationships, and antique stores are additional inspirations for me. And a dash of humor never hurts. My mixed media paintings incorporate ideas, concepts, and my life as an Alaskan woman. I invite viewers to create their own interpretations. A combination of cold wax, oils, and perhaps assemblage, brings my conceptual, sometimes representational, paintings to life. Telling authentic stories through art is a cathartic process that scratches an itch I cannot reach any other way. tamiphelps.com
Timothy Pilgrim, a Pacific Northwest poet and Montana native, has several hundred acceptances from U.S. journals such as Seattle Review, Toasted Cheese, Cirque, and Santa Ana River Review, and international journals such as Windsor Review in Canada, Prole Press in the United Kingdom and Otoliths in Australia. Pilgrim is the author of two books of poems.
Doug Pope is from Alaska. When he was twelve, he was inspired by reading To Build A Fire, Jack London’s iconic story about a trapper freezing to death. Perhaps the inspiration had something to do with having just spent a cold winter’s night on a bed of spruce boughs in an Army surplus sleeping bag. His works of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction were first published while he was in high school. Over the years, numerous stories, essays, and poetry followed in various publications, including the Anchorage Daily News, Anchorage Press, and Cirque, A Literary Journal of the North Pacific Rim. In 2020, his book The Way to Gaamaak Cove, comprised of linked stories set in the wilderness, was published by Cirque Press. He and his wife Beth now winter in Port Townsend, Washington.
Shauna Potocky is a poet and painter who calls Seward, Alaska home. Shauna has a deep love of high peaks, jagged ridgelines and ice. She has a strong connection to the natural world—both landscapes and seascapes with their rough or subtle edges where life unfolds. Shauna is the author of Yosemite Dawning: Poems of the Sierra Nevada (Cirque Press 2023). Her work appears in Writing Through The Apocalypse (2023), Seward Unleashed Water and Wonder (2023), Beyond Words International Literary Journal and her forthcoming book of poetry Sea Smoke, Spindrift and Other Spells is scheduled for publication by Cirque Press in 2025.
Artist, mother, photographer, yoga teacher, gardener and writer, Mandy Ramsey self -published her first book Grow Where You’re Planted in 2019, blending her poetry, photography and love of yoga through the seasons in Alaska. Her writing and artwork have been published in Tidal Echoes, Alaskan Women Speak, Cirque, Tiny Seed Journal, Elephant Journal, Young Ravens Literary Journal, Poets Choice, Alchemy & Miracles Anthology, and Still Point Quarterly. She has been living off the grid in Haines, Alaska since 2000 in the timber frame home she built with her husband, holds an M.A. in Yoga Studies and Mindfulness Education, and believes that movement, flowers, and the natural world can heal, inspire, and sprout friendships. Connect on mandyramsey.com
Tanyo Ravicz was born in Mexico City and grew up in Los Angeles, the son of anthropologists. He graduated from Harvard University in 1984. After living on the East Coast and in Europe, he settled for many years in Alaska, in Fairbanks and then Kodiak. He homesteaded land on Kodiak Island's north coast, and he often returns there. He presently resides in California. Over the years, he found work as, among other things, a wildland firefighter, property manager, cannery hand, day laborer and schoolteacher. His essays and stories continue to appear in a range of journals. His first novel A Man Of His Village, was awarded ForeWord Magazine’s Gold Award in Literary Fiction and the Eric Hoffer Prize in General Fiction; it was followed by a selection of his published short stories, Alaskans. He is the author of the short novel Ring of Fire and of the comic epic Hail to the Chief, issued as a Digital Single by Denali Press. Ravicz's Land of Bear and Eagle: A Home In The Kodiak Wilderness, a book of nonfiction, was published in 2022 by Hancock House Publishers. Visit the author's website at www.alaskawriting.com
Diane Ray frequently has poems in Cirque as well as other journals, but Cirque is her warm literary home. Her play, “The Man With His Finger in the Door,” not only appears in Cirque 14.1 but had a summer reading near Seattle starring none other than Cirque’s own Sandra Kleven and Cynthia Steele, as well as Diane’s husband’s riveting acting debut as the patriarch and son-in-law’s commanding presence in a Grim Reaper suit.
Joe Reno, a celebrated painter based in Seattle, is renowned for his evocative and textured works that embody the vibrant spirit of the Pacific Northwest. Reno blends abstraction and expressionism to create immersive visual experiences. With decades of exhibitions and accolades, Reno’s artistry continues to influence the Seattle art scene, solidifying his legacy as a creative force in Northwest art.
Warren J. Rhodes is a high school English teacher and former journalist who’s lived in Alaska since 1991. A past winner and judge in the University of Alaska Anchorage/Anchorage Daily News Creative Writing Contest, his work has appeared in the literary journals Cirque, Permafrost, Chabot Review and California Quarterly, and the newspapers Anchorage Daily News (nonfiction) and Anchorage Press (poetry).
Norma Sadler works in acrylic, watercolor and mixed media. With her background from courses and workshops at the UW-Madison and Boise State University, she developed a style that combines realism and abstraction. Her novels and poetry book on Amazon feature her paintings as covers. Currently, she lives in Orange County, California where she shows her work.
Tim Sherry: For most of his life, he kept his writing private with only a few attempts at publication. But with the support of writers in the Tacoma, Auburn, and Olympia writing communities, since 2002 he has had poems published in Rattle, Crab Creek Review, The Broad River Review, Cirque, and The Raven Chronicles, among others. He has been a Pushcart nominee, had his work recognized in contests, and his work has appeared in anthologies. His first full-length collection, One of Seven Billion, was published by MoonPath Press in 2014, and Holy Ghost Town was published in 2019 by Cirque Press.
Judith Skillman’s poems have appeared in Commonweal, Threepenny Review, Zyzzyva, and other literary journals. She has received awards from Academy of American Poets and Artist Trust. Oscar the Misanthropist won the 2021 Floating Bridge Press Chapbook Award. Her recent collection is Subterranean Address, New & Selected Poems, Deerbrook Editions, 2023. Visit www.judithskillman.com
Craig Smith is a retired Seattle newspaperman who spent the final 32 years of his career as a sportswriter at The Seattle Times. He is a native of Kenmore, WA, and a graduate of Bothell High School and the University of Washington, where he was editor of The Daily
Marilyn Stablein, a multidisciplinary artist, works in poetry, prose, mixed media, and book arts. Books include Splitting Hard Ground: Poems; Houseboat on the Ganges & A Room in Kathmandu; Sleeping in Caves; Climate of Extremes: Landscape and Imagination; Vermin: A Traveler’s Bestiary; and The Census Taker Traveler Tales. A former book critic for The Seattle Times, awards include the New Mexico Book Award, a National Federation of Press Women Book Award, a Southwest Writers Award, a Seattle King County publication award, and a Cullen Graduate Fellowship. Limited edition artist books are in private and public collections. She is based in Portland, Oregon. https://www.marilynstablein.com
Cheryl Stadig lived in Alaska for 18 years, calling several places home including Anchorage, Teller, Ketchikan, and Prince of Wales Island where her two sons were raised. Running the wilds of Maine in her youth helped prepare her for life in rural Alaska. Her Alaska resume includes work at a 5-star hotel, a university, a village general store, and as a 911 dispatcher/ jail guard. She would happily consider the job of hermit should a dot on the northern map be in need. Her work has appeared in previous issues of Cirque, Inside Passages, and other publications. She is currently living in Maine with her 100-year-old father who is still at home and cutting firewood.
Kathleen Stancik lives on the eastern slope of Washington’s Cascade Mountains. She began writing poetry about ten years ago after falling in love with it at a local poetry class. Her work has been published by Cirque, Portland Review, Typehouse, Shrub-Steppe Poetry Journal, Yakima Coffeehouse Poets and others. She is an enthusiastic grandmother of three who enjoys reading, hiking and spending time outdoors.
Cynthia Steele is a Pacific Northwest loving, lifelong Alaskan, except for those five concert-going years in Washington State and the bouncing around of her early childhood. She writes poetry, nonfiction, and takes hundreds of photos a week, and some of these end up in Cirque. Her book 30 Before 13 is in its final stages. She is a dog whisperer of seven and has fostered dozens. She holds a Medical Assisting Certification, an MA in English, and a BA in Journalism and has thrice been an editor. She has two adopted adult children and lives with husband Bill.
Richard Stokes is a Juneau resident of over 50 years. He writes about nature and aging. He is a frequent contributor to Cirque, Tidal Echoes and Juneau's Poetry Omnibus. He has self-published four chapbooks of poetry, the most recent entitled Woven
Joanna Streetly’s work is published in Best Canadian Poetry 2024, Best Canadian Essays 2017, and in anthologies, magazines and literary journals. Her most recent book, Wild Fierce Life: Dangerous Moments on the Outer Coast, is a BC Bestseller published by Caitlin Press. Other titles include Paddling Through Time (Raincoast Books) and Silent Inlet (Oolichan) as well as This Dark (poetry, Postelsia). Joanna has won the FBCW Literary Writes Poetry Contest and also been shortlisted for same prize, as well as The Spectator’s Shiva Naipaul Award for Outstanding Travel Writing and longlisted for the Canada Writes Creative Non-fiction Prize. Joanna grew up in Trinidad and moved to Canada when she was 17. She has lived on the outer coast of Vancouver Island since 1990 and was the 2018-2020 Tofino Poet Laureate. For nearly thirty years she has lived in a floating house she built herself.
Mark Strohschein is a Washington State poet who lives on Whidbey Island. His work is forthcoming in Bryant Literary Review, Barren Magazine and Main Street Rag. His poems have appeared in Flint Hills Review, Lips Poetry Magazine, The Milk House, Red Fern Review and The Big Windows Review, among others.
Sheary Clough Suiter grew up in Eugene, Oregon, then lived in Alaska and Colorado until her recent relocation back to the Pacific Northwest. Her encaustic fine art is represented in Anchorage, Alaska by Stephan Fine Art, in Camas, Washington by the Attic Gallery, in Green Mountain Falls, Colorado by Stones, Bones, & Wood Gallery, and in Colorado Springs, Colorado by Auric Gallery. When she's not traveling in her camper van along the backroads of America with her artist partner Nard Claar, Suiter works from her home studio in Springfield, Oregon near the Willamette River. Online at @shearycloughsuiter and www.sheary.me
Mary Ellen Talley’s poems have appeared in journals such as Banshee, Gyroscope, and Ekphrastic Review as well as in anthologies such as Raising Lilly Ledbetter and Sing the Salmon Home. Her poems have received three Pushcart nominations. A chapbook, Postcards from the Lilac City was published by Finishing Line Press in 2020 and Taking Leave by Kelsay Press in 2024. Currently residing in Seattle, WA, she formerly worked in special education as a speech-language pathologist (SLP) in Washington State Public Schools.
Carey Taylor is the author of The Lure of Impermanence (Cirque Press, 2018). She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and winner of the 2022 Neahkahnie Mountain Poetry Prize. Her work has been published both nationally and internationally. She holds a Master of Arts degree in School Counseling from Pacific Lutheran University and currently lives in Portland, Oregon. Her new poetry collection, Some Aid to Navigation, was recently published by MoonPath Press. https://careyleetaylor.com
Jan Tervonen grew up in a Finnish-American family in a small town in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan surrounded by the beauty of Lake Superior before settling in Seattle over 30 years ago. She was taught the values of simplicity, organization, and a good pun. She developed a minimalistic abstract style with a wry sense of humor representative of her FinnishAmerican roots. Her paintings have been featured in numerous solo and group shows in the Pacific Northwest including the Edmonds Arts Festival Foundation Gallery, Lynnwood Convention Center, Kirkland Library, Overlake Hospital, Renton’s Carco Theatre, and Pratt Fine Arts Center.
Jim Thiele worked as a photographer for a biological textbook company for several years before moving to Alaska in 1974. He has worked for The Alaska Department of Fish and Game and the University of Alaska as a biologist. He is a recently retired financial advisor. His photographs have been seen in several publications, including Alaska Magazine, Alaska Geographic, and Cirque. He lives in Anchorage with his wife Susan. Taking photos forces him to stop and really see the world.
Thomas Thomas: I've been a poet and photographer in the PNW for about 4 decades now, and a longtime admirer of Cirque Journal, which has thankfully published a couple of my poems. I have longed to have an image within your pages too. Cynthia Steele has given me a nudge to submit this photo, which I captured earlier this month. Gratitude.
J. T. Townley has published in Harvard Review, Kenyon Review, The Threepenny Review, and many other magazines and journals, and his work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize (five times) and Best of the Net award. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia and an MPhil in English from Oxford University, and he directs the Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies at Oregon State University.
Lucy Tyrrell sums her interests as nature, adventure (e.g., mushing, canoeing, and travel), and creativity (writing, sketching/art, photography, quilting). After 16 years in Alaska, in 2016, she traded a big mountain (Denali) for a big lake (Superior) when she moved to Bayfield, Wisconsin. As Bayfield Poet Laureate 2020–2021, she organized and edited A is for Apostle Islands—a community collaboration of art and poetry. She serves on the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission (2023-2025).
A third-generation artist, John Van Dreal began painting and writing at age seven. He earned his formal education in Fine Arts at Humboldt State University and Brigham Young University and educational psychology at Brigham Young University, maintaining careers in both fields while writing. A musician and award-winning artist with work featured in collections throughout the Pacific Northwest, Van Dreal uses his creative vision and accessible writing style to explore both the darker and quirkier sides of human behavior. His poetry book, titled Sand to Glass, was published by WordTech Communications’ Cherry Grove Collections imprint in January of 2023.
Ken Waldman has drawn on 38 years as an Alaska resident to produce poems, stories, and fiddle tunes that combine into a performance uniquely his; 12 CDs mix Appalachian-style string-band music with original poetry; 20 books include 16 full-length poetry collections, a memoir, a children's book, a creative writing manual, and a novel. Since 1995 he's toured fulltime, performing at leading festivals, concert series, arts centers, and clubs, including the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage, Dodge Poetry Festival, and Woodford Folk Festival (Queensland, Australia). www. kenwaldman.com
Emily Wall is a poet and Professor of English at the University of Alaska and holds an M.F.A. in poetry. Her poems have been published in more than 60 literary journals across the US and Canada and she has been nominated for multiple Pushcart Prizes. Her chapbook Flame won the Minerva Rising Dare to Be chapbook prize. She has six books of poetry: Fig, Fist and Flame are chapbooks published by Minerva Rising Press. Liveaboard and Freshly Rooted have found homes with Salmon Poetry. Breaking Into Air: Birth Poems is published by Red Hen Press. Emily lives and writes in Douglas, Alaska and she can be found online at www.emily-wall.com
Lillo Way's latest book is FLYING: Trapeze Poems from Red Bird Chapbooks. Way's poetry collection, Lend Me Your Wings, is described by Ellen Bass as “rich in music and in imagination…a celebration and a joy.” Her chapbook, Dubious Moon won the Slapering Hol Press Chapbook Contest. Her poems have won the E.E. Cummings Award and a Florida Review Editors’ Prize. Her writing has appeared in such journals as New Letters, Poet Lore, Tampa Review, Louisville Review, Poetry East, and in many anthologies. Way has received grants from the NEA, NY State Council on the Arts, and the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation for her choreographic work involving poetry. www.lilloway.com
John Weeks is a Seattle native and current resident who lived stretches of his life in California, on the East Coast, and in Central America and Puerto Rico. For 40 years, he was all-in as a writer/organizer in a movement to unite diverse communities of natural health and integrative practitioners and their allies in a Sisyphean effort to shift the medical industry toward a system for health creation. He is presently enjoying re-emergence in books, friends, and van-camping with his spouse in the Pacific Northwest.
Alan Weltzien I’m a retired English professor who’s published four chapbooks and eleven books. These include a memoir, A Father and an Island (Lewis-Clark Press, 2008), and three full-length poetry collections, most recently On The Beach: Poems 2016 - 2021 (Cirque Press, 2022). A prose chapbook, The Taylor Triptych, is forthcoming (summer 2024) from The Sea Letter and another poetry chapbook Into the Khumbu forthcoming from Cirque Press.
Richard Widerkehr’s fourth book of poems, Night Journey, was published in 2022 by Shanti Art Press, which has also accepted his new book, Missing The Owl Main Street Rag brought out At The Grace Cafe in 2021. His work has appeared in the Atlanta Review, Writer’s Almanac, Verse Daily, Rattle, and others. He won two Hopwood first prizes for poetry at the University of Michigan, three prizes in The Bridge’s annual awards, and first prize for a short story at the Pacific Northwest Writers Conference.
Melody Wilson is a pushcart nominated poet whose poems appear in Pangyrus, VerseDaily, The Fiddlehead, Crab Creek Review, San Pedro River Review and elsewhere. She is pursuing her MFA at Pacific University. Her chapbook, Spineless: Memoir in Invertebrates came out in 2023. Find more of her work at melodywilson.com
Matt Witt is a writer and photographer in Talent, Oregon. His work may be seen at MattWittPhotography.com. He has been Artist in Residence at Crater Lake National Park, Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness Foundation, Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, Mesa Refuge, and PLAYA at Summer Lake.
Tonja Woelber is a poet who loves Alaska in all weathers.
Robin Woolman has long been a performer and teacher of physical theater in Portland, Oregon. She loves backpacking in the high country of the Pacific Northwest or strolling the neighborhood while playing with words in her head. She dates her passion for writing back to Miss Mataroli’s second grade class …More recent works appear in Cirque, Global Poemic, Deep Wild, Poeming Pigeon, Westchester Review, and Red Shoe Press’s 2023 and 2024 Oregon Poetry Calendars
John Van Dreal
Field Burning Mid-Valley (oil on panel)
A Lullaby for Lincoln A for Lincoln
Ann Chandonnet Ann Chandonnet
Ann Chandonnet
Raised on a colonial land grant, author Ann Chandonnet swallowed a deep sense of history as present. A former college English instructor and police reporter, Chandonnet intends her lullaby to reinvigorate interest in Abraham Lincoln’s formative years. Abe was a country boy, just three generations from the Linkhorns of Britain. How did an obscure frontier lawyer and government representative rise to become America’s greatest leader?
Chandonnet has won a national prize for wilderness poetry as well as national and state awards for educational writing. She has been nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize. She is also the author of the “Alaska Food” article in the Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink (Oxford University Press).
Lullaby for Baby Abe
is lullaby imagines scenes from Abraham Lincoln’s life, from his 1809 winter arrival in the world to his third birthday (1812). Period objects, foods, verbal expressions and manners are twined into the text. Scenes described are typical of life on the Kaintuck (Kentucky) and Indiana frontiers. Research began with Carl Sandburg’s two-volume biography; and, some years later, embraced the details of Sidney Blumenthal’s A Self-Made Man: e Political Life of Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1849 (2016).
Characters are generally true to history with the exception of the preacher, the tinsmith, the shoemaker, the Yarb Woman and the Widder. Although ctional, these characters are typical of individuals who would regularly visit remote homesteads.
Cousin Dennis Hanks is one of the few family members whose pronouncements about the future of baby Abraham were recorded.
With precise, poetic language, Chandonnet evokes the early years of America’s 16th President. Young readers interested in history will enjoy the glimpses of Abraham Lincoln as a baby, as well as the accompanying notes explaining historical and regional terms as well as culinary delights. e book encourages a vivid imagining of early childhood in Kentucky, presenting readers with the cultural and societal in uences that shaped Baby Abe.
—Emily J. Madsen, Assistant Professor of English, University of Alaska Anchorage
Illustrated by Katie Scarlett Faile
An Imprint of Cirque Press illustrated books for Children and Adults
Sandra Kleven Michael Burwell Editors & Publishers
Into the Khumbu
Into the Khumbu
poems
poems
by
by
Alan Weltzien
Alan Weltzien
Praise for Into the Khumbu
“In these spare, carefully observed poems Weltzien invites the reader on his high altitude trek through the Khumbu, noting its slate roofs and prayer flags, its moraines and icefalls, and the milky eyes of the village elders. A humble traveler, the poet treads lightly, leaving no trace and bringing us the gift of these crystalline words. Exhale , with Weltzien and, drop into the mouth of the Khumbu. This is a journey well worth taking.”
—David Stevenson, two-time winner of the Banff Mountain Book Award
Into the Khumbu
by Alan Weltzien
O. Alan Weltzien, a retired English professor in Montana, has published five chapbooks and eleven books. These include studies or anthologies of writers Rick Bass, John McPhee, and Norman Maclean. His memoir, A Father and an Island (LewisClark Press), appeared in 2008. Cirque Press published his third, full-length Poetry collection, On The Beach: Poems 2016 — 2021 . Weltzien’s new prose chapbook, The TaylorTriptych ,” is being published by The Sea Letter press (Galveston, TX.)
Weltzien remains obsessed with mountains of all shapes and sizes, and still skis in winter and hikes and backpacks in summer. He and his wife, Lynn, travel extensively.
Kleven Michael Burwell Editors & Publishers
“Alan Weltzien’s Into the Khumbu documents the challenges and rewards of this rugged and magnificent trek into the Himalayas of Nepal. No trail traverses the space / between near and far , he observes, in this sacred world where prayer is carved in stone and carried on wind.”
—Tami Haaland, former Montana Poet Laureate
Sandra
Water r the e Rocks s Make e by y David
d McElroy
Available e on n Amazon n and d at t local l venders. . $16 95
David McElroy is a retired commercial pilot of small planes in the Arctic and a former smokejumper, fisherman, taxi driver, and English teacher. He is the author of four books of poetry, Making It Simple, Mark Making, Just Between Us, and Water the Rocks Make. He has been published in regional and national journals such as Alaska Quarterly Review, Cirque, Anteaus, Poetry Northwest, and Chicago Review. In 2016 he was the recipient of the Andy Hope award for poetry.
Water r the Rocks s Make e
by David McElroy Alaska Literary Series
University of Alaska Press
The poems of Water the Rocks Make commit into words the turbulence of emotion and thought stirred up by life’s events: family trauma, psychiatric instability, the legal system, the death of a loved one, identity, cultural displacement, work, loss, creativity, and through everything, love.
The Hungers of the World: New and Collected Later Poems
NEW FROM CIRQUE PRESS
A WONDERFUL-TERRIBLE GOD
BY THE REV. JUDITH W. LETHIN
A Journey of Spiritual Awakening in Native Alaska
With deep reverence for Alaska Native wisdom, Judith Lethin shares a powerful story of faith, courage, and healing through her service in the Native villages of Kachemak Bay and the Lower Yukon.
Judith Lethin’s tremendous spirit, love for all beings, humor, and compassion fill her memoir like a cup of communion wine. Her stories—which flow from her ‘cowgirl’ beginnings to her community service as a healer to her long devotion as “church lady” along the lower Yukon River—are infused with wisdom learned from Alaska Native elders and cultural practices, A Wonderful-Terrible God is a book about faith that is, at its heart, an exploratory and rewarding journey into the many ways of knowing.
—NANCY LORD, AUTHOR OF FISHCAMP AND BELUGA DAYS, FORMER ALASKA WRITER LAUREATE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The Reverend Judith Wegman Lethin is a writer, Episcopal priest, and retreat master. She holds a Masters of Arts in Teaching, Masters of Divinity, and Masters of Fine Arts in creative nonfiction. Lethin has published poems and stories in Chaplaincy Today, Alaska Dispatch News, Cirque, and Manifestations Journal. She lives with her husband, Kris, and two golden retrievers, Ruby and Winter, in Seldovia, Alaska.
Last Call of the Dark POEMS
MARY ELIZA CRANE
I opened the door and walked into this collection of poetry, immediately moved, and deeply connected to Crane’s pureness of observation through the stunning simplicity of her words. Her poems are in part a lullaby to the earth, both existential and paradoxical. Simultaneously, we are fragile and mighty, joyful and sorrowful, consumed with hope and hopelessness.
No matter how far she roams, Crane takes a deep dive into life and treats us to gorgeous places.
– Monica Devine, author of Water Mask
In Mary Crane’s new collection....twin themes of vulnerability to the human impulse to destroy plus her resulting alienation weave through the poems.
These are brave poems by a brave poet, celebrations at the edge of the abyss.
– Peter Ludwin, author of An Altar of Tides and Gone to Gold Mountain
Mary Eliza Crane is a western Washington poet who has resided in the hills above the Snoqualmie Valley for nearly four decades. A regular feature at poetry venues throughout Puget Sound, she has read her poetry from Woodstock to L.A., as well as with Siberian poets in Novosibirsk, Russia, and has been translated into Russian. Mary has two volumes of poetry published by Gazoobi Tales, What I Can Hold in My Hands (2009) and At First Light (2011). Her work has appeared in many literary journals as well as several regional and national anthologies. Mary is a cocurator and co-host of Duvall Poetry in her home community, a monthly reading series which has been running continuously for over twenty years.
In the Winter of the Orange Snow
In the Winter of the Orange Snow captures a era of freewheeling adventure in southwest Alaska, beginning in 1955, when Diane and Bob Carpenter embraced the wild with curiosity and courage, and the phrase “only in Bethel” was coined in response to events both mysterious and magical.
A las k a, be g innin g 1955, Bob coined eve n b ot h an d magica l .
Diane Carpenter captures t h e spirit, t h e o dd it i happenin g s, as w u nique an d b eauti f u l environment an d in d ig en p eo pl e o f t h e Kus k o k wim. S h e d oes so wit h hu an d c l ear reco ll ections. toug h
One cannot h e l p b ut g reat ly a d mire t h is wo ma tourists h ere in Bet h e l , A l as k a, w h ere primiti ve b ecame mo d ern times in t h e s p an o f a l i f etim e
Diane Carpenter captures the spirit, the oddities, the bizarreness of characters and happenings, as well the unique and beautiful environment and indigenous people of the Kuskokwim. She does so with humor, sensitivity, and clear recollections. It’s a tough land. One cannot help but greatly admire this woman. No tourists here in Bethel, Alaska, where primitive ways became modern times in the span of a lifetime.
–C l i f Bates , aut h or o f S ky Kusk
Sky Changes on the Kuskokwim
Diane Carpenter’s b oo k is a d e l i gh t f u l tramp t h
t h e A l as k a b us h t h e 1950s an d sixti e
t h rou gh t h e e y es o f a g reat stor y te ll er. Th e ta l e
a re so b ering, h i l arious an d very in f ormative, ea win d ow into t h e d etai l s o f t h e stor y te ll er’s l i f e
A l as k ans, t h e b oo k wi ll b e n os
For ot h ers, it wi ll b ri dg e t h e g ap b etween t h o se l ive on t h e roa d s ys tem an d t h e b us h . For rea d e t h e Lower 48 states, t h is b oo k wi ll b e an asto un ri d e on b oats, air pl anes , an d d o g- s l e d s t h ro ug h
Al as k a w i ld e rness . – Ja mes H. B ar k e r, a ut h or o
Diane Carpenter’s book is a delightful tramp through the Alaska bush country in the 1950s and sixties through the eyes of a great storyteller. The tales are sobering, hilarious and very informative, each a window into the details of the storyteller’s life and times. For many Alaskans, the book will be nostalgic. For others, it will bridge the gap between those who live on the road system and the bush. For readers in the Lower 48 states, this book will be an astounding ride on boats, airplanes, and dog-sleds through the – James H. Barker, author of Always Getting Ready / Upterrlainarluta: Yup’ik
Eski k mo S b ub si st t s en ce c i n So ut hw es t Al aska
Al wa ys y G et ti ng Rea dy Upter rl ainarluta: Yup’
a social activist an d statewi d e l ea d er. S h e was
The tough landscape of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta required someone like Diane Carpenter. As the decades passed, Diane was a teacher, a social activist and statewide leader. She was elected mayor of Bethel. She chaired the Alaska Humanities Forum and the Counsel on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault. She was a state delegate to the National Women’s Conference in Houston and lead organizer of the Alaska Village Electric Cooperative (AVEC). She taught in public schools and the local college. As she approached retirement, she set up the Pacifica Institute, a non-profit educational organization that developed many innovative programs. In 2007, Diane retired and moved from Bethel to the historic town of Alamos, Sonora, where she renovated a 250-year-old villa. She recently celebrated her 90th birthday there.
Dancing Away
poems by Robert M. Fagen
Now
We look to find our spot before we go from the corner. Mine is below the door frame on the side next to the mirrors. In class and beyond, we breach immensity then repeat to the left. To master classical ballet technique find your spot, do physics and listen to the music.
Dancing Away
poems by Robert M. Fagen
In his collection , poet Robert Fagen o ers a constellation of re ections, from ballet barre to physics, from young dancers to old mountains, from music to the Lingít language, and from Alaska wildlife to weather, but dance is always at the core. He o ers us the personal and the poignant, the universal and the quirky, with a Zen-like brevity to many of his poems. Relevant notes and a glossary of ballet terms enhance this collection, delighting and informing the curious reader.
—Susi Gregg Fowler, author of ten children’s books including Who Lives Near a Glacier? Alaska Animals in , Arctic Aesop’s Fables: Twelve , and Circle of anks
Sandra Kleven Michael Burwell Editors & Publishers
an american nurse in the vietnam War
Kissing Kevin by
sara berg
War is hell for men. We’ve always known that. As you read this book, you will discover that war is hell for women too. Sara bravely walked into that hell and made a difference. Then she bravely wrote her deeply personal memoir. I applaud her raw honesty, her courage to relive the mud and blood of the Vietnam experience exposing the emotional price paid by her and her sister veterans while documenting the immense contribution and sacrifice of women in military uniform during the Vietnam War.
—Diane Carlson Evans, Captain, Army Nurse Corps, Vietnam 1968–69. Author of Healing Wounds: A Vietnam War Combat Nurse’s 10-Year Fight to Win Women a Place of Honor in Washington, D.C. and Founder, Vietnam Women’s Memorial
In this compellingly readable narrative, Sara Berg describes improvising tools in a wartime field hospital to ease the pain of badly wounded American soldiers and helpless Vietnamese orphans. Her searing account would be almost too much to bear if it weren’t for the emergence of an extraordinary counter-narrative: the constant struggle by Berg and some colleagues to hold onto compassion and love. She tears her heart out and shows it to you. These memories of war pulsate with the fierce glow of life itself.
—Tom Kizzia, author of Pilgrim’s Wilderness and Cold Mountain Path
Available on $15
From Glass Lyre Press
“Eye sockets of a whale, salmonberries, rocky shoreline and seawall, crows and goldeneye, moon and tides, barnacles, dogwinkle, and limpet, krill and kelp, deer, even a mink… there is such rich imagery in Vivian Faith Prescott’s Marigram that I feel physically present…
Anne Coray, author of Late Fall Bucolics
Marigram: A graphic record of the tide levels at a particular coastal station.
From Glass Lyre Press, Marigram is a chapbook of poems about living next to the ocean in a small island community in Southeastern Alaska. Order from Glass Lyre Press, Ingram, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and elsewhere.
Cover art by Ketchikan Alaska artist, Evon Zerbetz
Vivian Faith Prescott was born and raised on the small island of Wrangell, Kaachxana.áak’w, in Southeast Alaska on the land of the Shtax’heen Kwáan. She lives and writes in Lingit Aaní at her family’s fishcamp. Along with her daughter, Vivian Mork Yéilk’, Vivian co-hosts the awardwinning Planet Alaska Facebook page and coauthors the Planet Alaska column appearing in the Juneau Empire
Vivian is also the author of Silty Water People from Cirque Press, shown here.
Ron McFarland A Variable Sense of Things New from Cirque Press
A Variable Sense of Things is sometimes wry, sometimes downright funny; sometimes elegiac, sad, or rueful, and always, always smart. They do not strain, these poems. They are wise. They mean exactly what they say, and more.
— Robert Wrigley, author of Earthly Meditations: New and Selected Poems and The True Account of Myself As A Bird
Intensely personal poems, studded with unexpected ironies like grace notes, which illuminate the depth below the surface.
— Mary Clearman Blew, author of Think of Horses
Ron McFarland was born in Bellaire, Ohio, grew up in Cocoa, Florida, took his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English from Florida State University in Tallahassee, taught two years at Sam Houston State in Huntsville, Texas, garnered his doctorate at the University of Illinois with a dissertation in 17th-century British literature, and embarked on a nearly 50-year teaching career at the University of Idaho, where he acted as impresario of poetry readings, served for many years as faculty advisor of the literary magazine Fugue , and helped create the MFA program.
Learn more about Ron and his writing at: cirquejournal.com/cirque-press-books
Presenting. . .
Memoir of An Artist at a Remote Alaskan Cannery
Ghostwritten by Tara Neilson ~
Enjoy 1960s Alaska through the personal images, artistic paintings, and stories of Dot
Boardwalk Footsteps paints a piece of Alaskan history that could have easily been forgotten. Dot Bardarson brings Chatham, a Southeast Alaska cannery, back to life in her clearly expressed memoir giving us a chance to relive life at an off-the-grid, functional cannery. Only reachable by float plane or boat, it functioned with a hierarchy of multiple cultures working together to put salmon in cans. Dot feels privileged to have been a part of this history, recording her adventures and personal love affair, inspired by letters she wrote daily to her parents.
Bardarson in Boardwalk Footsteps
Coming Soon
From Larri Irene Spengler and Cirque Press
“In this charming memoir, Taking Time , Larri Spengler joyfully narrates her family’s sailing adventures. Beginning as novices, the crew must acquire knowledge and skills: understanding wind and weather, tides and currents, navigation, safety, and being able to “live” in a cramped space. Spengler’s stories of sailing the channels, inlets, and coves of Alaska’s Inside Passage contain whimsy and mechanics, sailcloth and a recalcitrant motor, magnificent (and very close) wildlife, sudden winds and waves, and a family that learns the limits of their sailing vessel—and of themselves— where the sea is close enough to touch.”
— Katie Eberhart, Author of Cabin 135, A Memoir of Alaska
After her family acquired a sailboat, Larri Irene Spengler gradually realized that though their exact adventures and choices were particular to them, strands from their 18 years afloat might be useful to other peop le.
They made regular wilderness forays from their home in Juneau, during which they became attuned to weather, gained skills and resiliency, coped with emergencies, watched whales and sunsets, read aloud to each other, and had spacious time for both conversations and silence.
Taking Time conveys one way to live in the present, and to nurture together-time in the face of brimming schedules and encroaching technology.
A life-affirming template, whether or not you own a sailboat!
• Considered for the Caldecott Medal for the best illustrated children’s book of 2023.
• Purchased by the Oficina de Proyectos de Culturales de Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for their collection
• In the collection at El Biblioteca de Los Mangos in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico!
"A heartwarming true story of Bebe, a cat rescued in Mexico and her compelling journey to her new home in America. Charming illustrations that bring the story alive. A delightful “feel-good” read for any child."
Corinne Ludy, M.Ed., Elementary Librarian
Whisman Humphrey is a retired Elementary Principal, former Reading Specialist, Central Office Administrator, and Administrator of a Teacher Education Program at the University of Washington.
• Available at 3rd Place Books, Amazon and other venders
Lynda
HOW TO SUBMIT TO CIRQUE
Cirque, published in Anchorage, Alaska, is a regional journal created to share the best writing in the region with the rest of the world. Cirque submissions are not restricted to a “regional” theme or setting.
Cirque invites emerging and established writers living in the North Pacific Rim—Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Hawaii, Yukon Territory, Alberta, British Columbia and Chukotka—to submit short stories, poems, creative nonfiction, translations, plays, reviews of first books, interviews, photographs, and artwork for Cirque’s next issue.
Issue #29—Reading Period March 23, 2024 to March 25, 2025
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Eligibility: you were born in, or are currently residing in, or have previously lived for a period of not less than 5 years in the aforementioned North Pacific Rim region.
-- Poems: 5 poems MAX
-- Fiction, Nonfiction, Plays: 12 pages MAX (double spaced).
-- Artwork and Photography : 10 images MAX accepted in JPEG or TIFF format, sent as email attachments. Please send images in the highest resolution possible; images will likely be between 2 and 10mb each. If you do not submit full-size photo files at time of submission, we will respond with an email reminder. No undersize images or thumbnails will be eligible for publication.
-- Bio: 100 words MAX.
-- Contact Info: Make sure to keep your contact email current and be sure that it is one that you check regularly. If your contact information changes, make sure to inform us at Cirque. To ensure that replies from Cirque bypass your spam filter and go to your inbox, add Cirque to your address book.
-- Submit to https://cirque.submittable.com
-- Replies average two to three months after deadlines, and we don’t mind you checking with us about your submissions.
-- Cirque requires no payment or submission fees. However, Cirque is published by an independent press staffed by volunteers. Your donations keep Cirque Press going. You will find donation buttons on Submittable and you can also support us via PayPal to cirquejournal@gmail.com.
Thanks for your poetry, prose, images and financial support
