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Old Harry’s Daughter, CRAFT Literary Visit and read! I’d love to hear your thoughts…

Methuselah’s Daughter

My drug counselor says I have an anger problem. You need to find your Higher Power, Tansy. Well,the only way I’ll believe in that clay-brained-higher-power-business is if he or she or it gets me out of this treatment facility where the inmates are called residents and we’re all kept under lock and key due to the supposed danger we pose …

Hiking Path

Published in The Portland UpsideApril 2010by Julianna Waters I took you with me in my pocket,folded but not crumpled,to see the canyon and the mule deer,to hear the Imnaha Riversing to rock, grass and limb:rush, rush, don’t hurryrush, rush, don’t hurry. I worked my way up a crumbling path.The sun, barely awake,had not yet poured it’s warm glazedown the canyon …

How it Will Be (for Ricky, whom we love)

I wrote this poem over the summer for my friend, Rick. For years he’s been struggling with omentum cancer and ministering to the masses with his music despite the ups and downs of his illness. This week, we celebrate his life and spirit. Rock on, pal… How It Will Be When death comes to youit will be by invitation: aknock …

Brain Freeze

Portland has been in a deep freeze. For the first few days it snowed and every-day life came to a stand still while sled runs, cross-country skiing  and snowman construction became the norm. Indoors, we relaxed, slept late, read. We stayed in our Pjs, and made soup in the crock pot. Even with the squeals of children sliding down the …

A Walk in the Park

In Jim Harrison’s amazing poem “Spring”, the line “a break from the struggle of being” caught my eye. I thought to myself, Wow, I’d really like a break from my struggle to be.” At the time, anxiety had my stomach tight and achy. I couldn’t wrangle my thoughts. In fact, my thoughts felt like wild, ornery things intent on a chase through …

The Seasons of the Heart

Spring is within me. It’s a season of the heart unlike any other. I have felt it many times. In the past, I have ignored it. Thought to myself, “It’s too early for this Spring,” or, “I’m too old for this Spring.” But THIS Spring, surges through me and asks me to love it. It says that if I love …

Children in a Field by Angela Shaw

They don’t wade in so much as they are taken. Deep in the day, in the deep of the field, every current in the grass whispers hurry hurry, every yellow spreads its perfume like a rumor, impelling them further on. It is the way of girls. It is the sway of their dresses in the summer trance- light, their bare …