The 8 Meme

I found this meme on i beati's blog and thought I would give it a try. The above is created with Wordle.

The 8 Meme

Eight Books I Have Read Recently
1-Home to Holly Springs- Jan Karon
2-Her Last Death- Susanna Sonnenberg
3-Friday Night Knitting Club- Kate Jacobs
4-A Poetry Handbook-Mary Oliver
5-Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah
6.-Lost and Found by Jacqeline Sheenan
7- Old Friends from Far Away by Natalie Goldberg
8- Killer Heat by Linda Fairstein

Eight Movies I Have Seen Eight Times
1. American President
2.Sound of Music
3. When Harry Met Sally
4.It' A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
5. Big
6.Muppet's Christmas Carol
7.The Way We Were
8.On Golden Pond

8- Eight Things I Have a Passion For
1-Flowers
2-Cooking and recipe collecting
3-Writing/Reading
4-Family
5-Poetry
6-Camping
7-Teaching
8-Photography

Eight things I say a lot
1. Really!
2. Ummmmm! That's Interesting
3. Amen
4. Have you made a good choice?
5. You're kidding!
6. Do I snore?
7 . I'm going to bed.
8. Do you want a treat?

Eight Things I Would Like to Do Before I Die
1- Learn to knit
2- Play the piano well
3- Go to Yellowstone National Park
4- Take my mom back for a trip to the Oregon coast
5- Bring all my friends from different places together for a retreat
6- Take a road trip through the back roads of the Pacific Northwest
7- Visit the Thousand Islands in New York
8- Take a workshop from a photographer to learn more about the craft

"Idaho Is my central, sustaining, mythic landscape."

a miner working in the dark of the Bunker Hill mine in Kellogg, Idaho

I was saddened today to learn that Idaho poet and essayist William Studebaker had died in a accident while kayaking the Salmon River. Studebaker depicted the people and places of Idaho so well in his writing. This is what he said about Idaho in the book Eight Idaho Poets, edited by Ron McFarland.
"My poetics assumes Idaho. When I write, Idaho imagery often meshes with thematic considerations. Idaho is my central, sustaining, mythic landscape. " The following poem is one I always return to read. It helps me understand the underground miner a bit better by the imagery and contrasts of dark and light that are used so well by Studebaker.

Mining At Night
I pass through a portal on a train
loaded with men and dynamite.
Air-doors close behind us.
The trammer steers the train
with a throttle, speeding to stops
where men get off
where small fists of light
pull them down drifts
they blasted into themselves.

Where I work, the walls are round.
My arms go out and never return.
Only the head sends back messages:
water, rock, air, and colors I can't see.
Like a person who lives alone
I mine shadows for illumination.

(I have stood for years in the same spot
and heard the same sound
as if life were repetition:

the stroke of my heart
the feeling of my skin sliding
over the whites of my eyes
the smell of my own breath.

as if memory could beat darkness into light
I pack the sun in my head
and do my work as it were day.)

When the train pulls shift
I board for the dry
take off my leathery wings
and walk through the streets
to where sleep waits like a bat
hanging from the rafters of a vacant dream.

William Studebaker
Eight Idaho Poets, 1979

To learn more about William Studebaker's accident go here and to read another poem River Religion go here.

Sibling Assignment #69: Heat

Raymond Pert gave the sibling assignment this week: Create a photo slide show with music with the title "Heat".You will soon find his here and Silver Valley Girl's here.Both of us experienced quite a shock last week-end as we left our retreat in McCall and drove home in temperatures that were a) well over 100 degrees b) not what we had been used to, and c)RP didn't have air conditioning in his car. When he arrived home HEAT couldn't leave his mind. Enjoy!

I Couldn't Have Illustrated It Better!

Photo Hunt: Pointed

One brand new box of pointed, colorful crayons=contentment. To find other photo hunters using pointed go here.

Summer Bouquet #1: The Heat Lovers

The temperatures that have held at over one hundred degrees for most of the week did in most of the roses and early summer blossoms. Here are the heat lovers or blooms that were in the shade.