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Stories & Essays

Innocence

March 14, 2022
he looks across the valleysmall holdings, fruit trees and vinesa dark man leans on a shovelgrapes in a cart are the worldthe air is cooldropping the leavesa hawk banks toward the ridgeoptimism rises like sap in the springhe is insane his edifice has crumbledhe stares at the screensmall women and men stare backthey turn to […]
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Yardwork

October 07, 2021
Green and golden they flutter down from the katsura, oak and maple treesNudged gently by the breeze of late September, they float to earthAwakening childhood memories of that brief interludeWhen bright blue warmth of summer skies fades intoClouds of smoke curling upward from burning piles of fallen leaves. Time to clean up our act!Do our […]
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Godscape of Clouds

June 06, 2021
cumuli from Canaletto’s canvasunder sail on the ocean skyaccumulate in the westdrifting east in billowing floretsjuggled by Zeus nimbus lowers and creepsup a draw to a final jeteonly to fall before the Harpyiaeand release its moistureover the parched hills lenticular slips its mountain mooringstretches an elastic lanceto the Klickitat countrya daring alien craft intrudingat ease […]
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Portland, Oregon: Then and Now

March 23, 2021
Some years ago while sitting with a fellow Portlander in a coffee shop in Friday Harbor, a charming town in the San Juan Islands, a Washington State Ferry stop between Anacortes, Washington and Sidney, British Columbia and home to a pod of orcas, a marine science laboratory and a bevy of old salts from Seattle, […]
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All My Relations

October 29, 2018
I want to thank all my relations for this chance to be on Earth in her time of flourishing; to thank the First People of this place, to honor their sovereignty in long and continuing relation, still teaching us how we might be here together; to thank my mother and father, moon and sun, for […]
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The Replacements

April 28, 2018
My parents are missing. I think it happened around the time that my daughter was born. I am embarrassed to say that I was so consumed by being a new mommy that I didn’t notice at first that they had disappeared. My daughter is now three years old. Don’t worry. My daughter has wonderful grandparents. […]
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A Fertile Meadow Far From Town

January 26, 2018
I wished to dive into some deep stream of thoughtful and devoted life, which meandered through retired and fertile meadows far from town. I wished…to lurk in crystalline thought like the trout under verdurous banks, where stray mankind should only see my bubble come to the surface. I wished to live, ah! As far away […]
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Fire and Water

October 15, 2017
I had always thought that when I died, my children would scatter my ashes under the pines beside Davis Lake, where we have camped for twenty years. But it’s all ashes there now. Wildfire flared up along the road behind the east campground. Driven by 25-mile-an-hour winds, the firestorm charged across the road and ran […]
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The Prankster-in-Chief Moves On

June 28, 2017
The answer is never the answer. I’ve never seen anybody really find the answer—they think they have, so they stop thinking. But the job is to seek mystery, evoke mystery, plant a garden in which strange plants grow and mysteries bloom. The need for mystery is greater than the need for an answer. —Ken Kesey […]
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Hippocratic Hypocrisy

June 12, 2017
Several years ago, Congressman Raul Labrador (R- Idaho) proclaimed that “nobody dies because they don’t have access to health care.” * My experience has been different. When I heard his words I thought of a sweet young woman whose body and community both turned against her.  Somehow, I was supposed to be her last hope. […]
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