A Creek Runs through It

By Chuck Smythe

In eastern Colorado, the Continental Divide makes a great sweep to the East at 40 degrees latitude, where Arapahoe Peak towers only thirty miles from the Great Plains. This bend funnels the great westerly winds, which pile up there and fall over a mile to the prairie, picking up speed as they drop. The ghost town of Caribou, which I visited in our recent story “Snow Hiking in Colorado High Country,” is just below Arapahoe Peak, and the wind howls through town like a Banshee much of the winter.

A Little Slice of Fife – Part 2

The dream emerges

By Marshall Carder

As the weekly rounds turned into years, the bonds between everyone grew despite all of the on-course antics. There were many scenes of high drama, like the time Brooksie told Christian after a round that he had better seek professional help because he was the craziest person Brooksie had ever met, which was saying a whole lot considering his background in psychology and Synanon. You see, Wells had adamantly disagreed about the final resting place of one of Brooksie’s balls and a full-blown shouting match had ensued complete with all manner of denigration. And normally that type of behavior could have resulted in a parting of ways, but for Golfers it meant nothing after the next t-time was made. Such is the power of the game.

Joan Marie Knows Them All (a poem)

By Ralph Earle









I know a few: robins, starlings —
for the rest, the tenacious
deep deep peer-up peer-up peer-up
swelling shifting layer over layer,
teaberry teaberry teaberry teep
on the branch ch- ch- ch- ch- ch-
with the sky just barely not dark.

Sketches from the Twin Cities: Spring Sounds (like)

A sort of poem: similes of middle-school music students

By Geoffrey Dean

A recent distance learning music lesson of mine asked middle-school students to listen to Vivaldi’s “Spring” from The Four Seasons after reading his sonnet “La Primavera” (in English). Asked what spring “sounds” like to them, most wrote birds chirping, but a number of the 200+ responses were “one-of-kind.” I was moved by the many thoughtful and beautifully-phrased answers, and amused by some whimsical or even slightly jaded ones.

A Little Slice of Fife – Part 1

What is it about golf?

By Marshall Carder

One senses a magical anticipation just before a round of golf. It’s much like that feeling you had as a child on Christmas Eve, wondering what your presents would be, hoping for the perfect gift, even seeing yourself holding it, and yet all the while knowing that you could end up with a bunch of ugly clothes from Grandma. And I guess that’s why the game has had such an allure to so many for so long. Because you know there’s such a thing as a perfect score, and you can hit every shot, if only in your mind. And even though the game might never deliver that perfect score, there are moments when the shots are timeless and brilliant and would be good on any course, in any tournament. That is the game’s hook. That is what keeps us coming back.

All Over the Place: An Hour Ago Nothing Much Happened

By Michael H. Brownstein

What is it
– today –
– a week ago –
sleeping in the dragonfield mines?
:the breath of passion flower overhead
the jaws of the dandelion
the strength of blood tulips
craning their stems through the shadow growth

Acting Citizen: Sheep and Fish

Facebook is to blame for this

By James Knudsen

“A horse, a saddle, and land.” Those are the three things my maternal grandfather suggested I ask my father for when it came time for me to start making my way in life. My grandfather was born in the village of Doze Ribeiras on the island of Terceira, one of the major islands of the Azores archipelago. Born Laurentino Domingoes Cota on February 9, 1900, he came with his family to the United States at the age of seven. First by ship across the Atlantic and then by train crossing the American continent. One of earliest stories of his life is of him losing his hat when he stuck his head out the window of a train. He pleaded with the conductor to stop the train, but I suspect his lack of English and being only seven did little to advance his cause. The family settled in the San Joaquin Valley and joined the growing community of Portuguese immigrants whose families remain a significant part of the Central Valley today.

Coronavirus Math & Russian Roulette

Dr. Anthony Fauci

By Paul Clark (aka motomynd)

[Re-posted with corrections.]

After listening to Dr. Fauci the other day, I began to wonder if a 1% death rate from coronavirus was imaginable in America. Seems far-fetched, but the flu of 1918 killed somewhere between 700,000 and a million people in America – when the population was in the range of 103 million. Our population is approximately three times that today, so take 700,000 and multiply by 3 and you get 2.1 million. Factor in modern health care, modern communication, etc, and you maybe cut that number. But factor in a couple of screw-ups by the fed...imagine...and you could get to a 1% death rate.

Two Is Enough: Thanks to Judy

Detail

Two paintings saved

Paintings by Shirley Deane/Midyett

Text by Vic Midyett

Shirley painted these two scenes over 35 years ago. When we went to Australia in 2008, our CPA friend, Judy, wanted to keep them in her house, and thank goodness she did, for otherwise we would have lost both of them. For, like morons, we left our home to rent fully furnished, including other, larger paintings (one about 4' x 5'), all in expensive frames. All gone now.
    Judy is a good friend. She helped us out of a lot of situations while we were in Australia. She has been a life saver. On our return to Tahlequah, she returned the paintings to us so they might once again hang in our home.

Father’s Art: Works of Billy Charles Duvall [4]

Detail of 3rd painting

Three Paintings of Dancers

By André Duvall

When launching this series, I envisioned each installment of my father Billy Charles Duvall’s artwork having some unifying theme, technique, or history. Dad easily came up with the theme of today’s three original works: dancing. Each painting shows a dancer in movement, drawing our eyes to the details in the folds and colors of their clothing. Dad creates striking contrasts of each dancer with the colors and stillness of the surrounding environments, yet each dancer seems right at home.

West Coast Observer: American Hypocrisy

By William Silveira

In the New York Times article “A Former Farmworker on American Hypocrisy” (May 6, 2020), Alfredo Corchado accuses our government of hypocrisy when it says workers formerly considered “illegal” are now “essential.” Much of what Corchado discusses was known to me. I grew up in Tulare and have resided in Tulare County my whole life. My father was a farm owner with 400 acres of farm land south of Tulare. At the time I was growing up, we raised sugar beets, cotton, milo, barley, and alfalfa. We also had pigs. My brother and I irrigated these crops and cut, mowed, and raked the alfalfa. In our spare time we were expected to help out with the pigs – fence maintenance, health care, and feeding.

Snow Hiking in Colorado High Country

Detail

Introduction & Afterwords by Chuck Smythe

Photos by Ed Schmahl

A couple of friends and I have been doing weekly “social-isolation hikes” out here in the high country of Colorado (Caribou Top). Colorado in the spring, it’s wonderful! Ed Schmahl’s photos from our April 30 hike try to illustrate it, but, as Moristotle’s poems attest, if you weren’t along you can’t really get the wonder. Ed sent me the four photos that appear here with the note, “Let’s go someplace up there again!”

All Over the Place: Cherita

By Michael H. Brownstein

Ai Li is the editor of The Cherita website, and the founder of a type of poetry she calls Cherita, from the Malay word for story, or tale. A cherita poem has six lines arranged in three verses, with no title. It sort of tells a story. The main format of a cherita is 1‑2‑3: a 1‑line verse followed by a 2‑line verse, followed by a 3‑line verse. A cherita terbalik (inverted cherita) has one of the other five possible sequences of 1‑, 2‑, and 3‑line verses: 1‑3‑2,  2‑1‑3,  2‑3‑1,  3‑1‑2,  or 3‑2‑1.

Boldt Words & Images: A poem

Eliot in 1934,
by Lady Ottoline Morrell

With apologies to TS

By Bob Boldt

Don’t worry. I won’t be leaving the planet without a fight. Old Screwtape will have to pay dearly for this soul.

Goines On: Guardian angel?

Click image for more vignettes

Goines had years ago reestablished contact electronically with Landi, a friend from when the Goineses still lived in California in the ’80s. Landi now sent him one of those “chain” messages, this one with the subject “Poem Exchange,” which called for him to send a poem to the first email listed.