Three Beautiful Things

This evening as I gazed across the lake from the deck I reflected on three beautiful things: a spring sky, mountains in the shadow, and longer evenings.

Celebrating National Poetry Month: #30

Poetry is a passion in my life. I have loved reading and rereading poetry and posting a poem each day this month. I may have to continue posting favorite poems as I find them. Thanks for all your encouraging comments about the month's collection. Recently two people shared this poem with me. It became a new one to add to my collection. I love the woven theme of tasks and how many ways they can be approached. It was fitting to choose my mother's picture above for this final poem. Whether she is at my house helping to prepare Thanksgiving dinner as illustrated above, planting a garden, or washing down the walls in her kitchen- she always jumps in head first.

To be of use

The people I love the best

jump into work head first

without dallying in the shallows

and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.

They seem to become natives of that element,

the black sleek heads of seals

bouncing like half submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,

who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,

who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,

who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge

in the task, who go into the fields to harvest

and work in a row and pass the bags along,

who stand in the line and haul in their places,

who are not parlor generals and field deserters

but move in a common rhythm

when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.

Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.

But the thing worth doing well done

has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.

Greek amphoras for wine or oil,

Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums

but you know they were made to be used.

The pitcher cries for water to carry

and a person for work that is real.

-Marge Piercy

Grand Coulee Dam and the Lake Roosevelt Drawdown

When Grand Coulee Dam was constructed on the Columbia River in the 1930s the water behind the dam created Lake Roosevelt. It stretches from the dam to the Canadian border north of us. Grand Coulee Dam provides power, water for irrigation, and flood control . Each year starting in early April we experience a drawdown of Lake Roosevelt. Because more water was needed this year the drawdown is greater. It changes the landscape of the area around Lake Roosevelt where we live. All the part that is sand above is usually underwater. Barnaby Island is not an island right now. The locals always plan hikes from the campground out to the island this time of year when the sandy shore is exposed on all sides.
Looking north it almost looks like a beach at the ocean in this picture. You can see the channel that is getting smaller. A few months ago this was all covered with water. A new island has even emerged on the lake by our house. Believe me... there are many more places to take hikes during the drawdown.

The original town of Inchelium was also moved when they filled Lake Roosevelt. It is a tradition during a big drawdown to hike to Old Inchelium with our students to locate streets and foundations. The elders love to come and share stories about living on the Columbia River and moving the town to a higher spot. Above the bridge at Kettle Falls we can now see the place the Indians gathered each year to catch salmon. There is rich history around my corner of the world. This time of year the past and present intertwine with ritual and remembrance.

Celebrating National Poetry Month: #29

There Is a Place

There is a place

where the museum houses thousands of paintings
seen nowhere else in the world,
the colors so bright they grab your eyes
and hold you there, looking,where the library is filled with brand new books
waiting for you to open them first,
to tell stories only you could know,

where fresh cherries have no pits,
where puppies never grow old.

There is such a place,
hidden deep
in me.

- Janet Wong

WASL: Week 2

In the state of Washington public school students take the Washington Assessment of Student Learning. We gave the assessments three days last week and start again tomorrow for the second week. Depending on the grade level students are tested in reading, math, writing, and science. I have sharpened lots of pencils, proctored without helping or looking over shoulders, and administered the most important things that help my students: lots of encouragement, cinnamon gum ( helps with memory), and water to hydrate the brain. All the tests are untimed so the 7th graders doing a writing prompt tomorrow could take most of the morning. Even though I don't take the test or even know the questions... I am exhausted at the end of every session. Think how my students feel!

Celebrating National Poetry Month: #28

Purple Flower Poem

Among the geranium, a rash

of purple campanula begins,

scattering like Chinese fireworks

through the delicate tan and yellow tips

of saxifrage, encircling a group of bloody

cranes' bills perched on rock. I want

to name these flowers for you,

a litany of colors that begin where

there is hardly any, only the gentlest

hint of evening-flush at the base

of the throats of narcissus and sweet

william, sharing a bed with verbena.

Deep blue and slightly furry as a concord

grape, the salvia cardinalis burns a wine

color of intense sweetness on my tongue.

We could have a curry laksa with it,

even cheese-perhaps a soft brie or kesong

puti sprinkled with peppercorns, or a whole

clove of roasted garlic to smear on the slightly

dusty surface of a saltine cracker. That

reminds me of my grandmother's room

and the smell of her lavender-water,

distilled from the lavandula angustifolia,

whose spears are so rigid to the touch

and announce themselves with such radiant

distinction. I want to glow like them, a field

of me headier than a bottle of decanted scent,

unblushing as a recitation of the contents

of antique pomanders tied with silk string.

Petals pressed into the cool ivory of journal pages:

delphinium, pasque flowers, linseed and flax; linum

perenne, the soft-hooded acanthus spinosus,

purple phlox, and velvet lupine. Veronica

incana, the powderpuff balls of hesperis

matronalis-- the ones they call sweet

rockets-- clearer than rain, exploding

like breath from the furiously kissed

mouth; like fizzy candy, like eskimo

stars in the milky sky.

-Luisa A. Igloria