Saturday, April 8, 2023

The Heavenly Tree Grows Downward

 


Colorado Times-Recorder

Denver media progressive Jason Salzman is putting out an in-depth on-line newspaper with Colorado news and op-ed.  Here's one poem of mine that just appeared as opinion. For the published version, go HERE



Day After


April Fool's

almost missed 

the subtleties of circle fractures

in the poled skin of the snow


As Gerrit Lansing once told us

The Heavenly Tree Grows Downward

"All life long/the dew falls from heaven

... trees climb up from underground waters"



Holding palm up on the unburnt trunk

of a Thunder Trails yellowleg pine

in morning tai chi -- chanting

 needles, rootlets, hyphae


News alive again

with Mar-a-lago shenanigans

blowing ill-will like a militia howl 

before a Rocky Mountain storm


Not surprised really, Irate, saddened. Right

& left, vicious or vicarious, some furious

li bingeing on outlaw fantasies. We

Americans love our bully pulpits. Our puppets



Wednesday, April 5, 2023

Ziggie's Open Mike Zoom Series


 Julie Cummings is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.


Topic: Ziggies Poetry Open Mic Featuring Art Goodtimes
Time: Apr 6, 2023 05:45 PM Mountain Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting HERE


Meeting ID: 830 9558 4158

Tuesday, April 4, 2023

BARDIC TRAILS APRIL 13023

 

Talking Gourds Broadside by Daiva Chesonis
Talking Gourds Broadside by Daiva Chesonis

Diana Whitney

Fischer Prize Finalist 2022

 Happy National Poetry Month!

If you missed registering to join us for tonight's Bardic Trails at 7 pm Mountain Time, find the zoom link below  

After Diana reads, host Joanna Spindler will lead a Q&A session

followed by our Passing of the Gourd for those wanting to read a poem

 Bardic Trails is held on the first Tuesday of every month as a collaboration of the Telluride Institute's Talking Gourds poetry program and the Wilkinson Public Library

Topic: Bardic Trails

Time: Apr 4, 2023 07:00 PM Mountain Time (US and Canada)

JOIN ZOOM HERE

Meeting ID: 820 8592 7190 



Diana Whitney writes across the genres with a focus on feminism, sexuality, and motherhood. She is editor of the bestselling anthology YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE EVERYTHING: POEMS FOR GIRLS BECOMING THEMSELVES, a Best Book of 2021 and winner of the 2022 Claudia Lewis Award. As the longtime poetry critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, Diana featured women poets and LGBTQ voices in her column. Her nonfiction and poetry have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Kenyon Review, Glamour, Tinderbox, and many more. Her poetry debut, WANTING IT, became an indie bestseller and won the Rubery Book Award. She is finishing a new collection, GIRL TROUBLE, supported by a Creation Grant from the Vermont Arts Council. Find out more HERE



Sunday, March 26, 2023

Tuning into KTMH 89.9 Light Praise Radio

 


Christian Democracy

Capt. B can see heshe was raised on the Christian 
story. Found Ramadan a whole lot like Lenten 

fasts pre-easter. Before the palm leaf & alleluias 
Ask herhim, "So who's God?" & heshe'll say

A great big bearded Old Man who knows it-key all
Infallible as il Papa, the Pope, according to the

Bible of the Vatican (never vacant) Holy Roman
Empire Church where all too often itki was  

the clergy (even some of the Redhats) who're 
first in communion & last out of confession

Capt. B can't see red for blue, or even green
unadulterated. To herhim  itki's the Radical

mess of the Middle where itki's best
to bend a knee

Tuesday, March 21, 2023

Vernal Equinox

 

Morning Crustbusting


My snowshoes don't sink

Aren't lead weights dragging my glide

down into the subsurface melt zone


No  deep step break trail

plod of tracks into sinkholes

of afternoon sun slush


Poles flash like outriggers as I sail

across a night freeze snowpack

tacking to the storm's light flakes


Pausing for just a moment to  swig

a canteen & lay a hand blessing

on my favorite pine



Friday, March 10, 2023

Snowshoeing

 



Perception


Putting on the gloves & turning 

southwest to my poles

I catch a blast of gold mahogany 

on the Utah horizon


A knock-out break in the dusk's 

concrete gray overcast

Light peltings of snow crystals 

melt on my parka


The coda of the clouds chases me 

down Oak Hill's slopes

where, on the ropes, I can see 

through the storm's 


weakening punches. A peek of blue 

sky east towards 

the Wilsons. Mist rising from 

the ring of Wrights Mesa


I snow-walk my tracks back 

to Thunder Trails Road

where my patient bot-mobile waits 

for me & life's key


McRedeye sez

 "I'm no determinist like Einstein

WISIWYCM.  WISIWYCM

What I See Is What You Call the Multiverse

I call itki me"



Friday, March 3, 2023

Reinventing Politics


Democracy demands compromise

RADICAL MIDDLE ... There was a younger time in my life when I was an activist. A radical. I was proud of trying to get to the root of issues and finding solutions ... However, as viable solutions continued to evade my grasp or anyone’s handle, I began to discover my elder self, as ecophilosopher Donna Haraway would say, “staying with the trouble.” Housing. Transportation. Cost of living. The issues haven’t changed much in the 40+ years I’ve lived in San Miguel County ... Once a devotee of Dave Foreman, I refused to compromise and stood firm for what I felt was right. But for the last couple decades, as a county commissioner (emeritus now), I found myself listening to all my constituents, even the ones I fervently disagreed with. And in the process came to realize political solutions have to come from balanced, understandable, out-of-the-box thinking (radical) that a majority can support (middle), not the agendas of the right or left fringes ... Here’s a couple examples of journalists who eschew Fake News and take us into the thickets of issues, raising uncomfortable questions that need resolving before political action can be appropriately taken ... As we’ve learned from the national embarrassment of Rep. George Santos, media (local newspapers in particular) are our first line of defense against lies, deceptions, mis- and dis-information. And, best of all, they can educate the public about complex issues, so citizens can come to a reasonable understanding and take informed action, as needed.



FOUR CORNERS FREE PRESS ... Dr. Janneli Miller did a masterful job educating the regional public about the pros and cons of solar power in general, and in their specific applications being proposed for Montezuma County in the February issue on the newsstands now in Cortez and Dolores. There are tradeoffs, unwelcome impacts and essential mitigations for all our industrialized power systems, solar included. We shouldn’t shy away from addressing them. And we should resist becoming mere boosters for what seems to be the right thing to do without doing the deep research before making complex political decisions.

GUNNISON COUNTRY TIMES ... Publisher Alan Wartes runs my favorite small-town paper on the Western Slope ... The majority of the state’s citizens passed a recent wolf re-introduction ballot measure. The Gunnison region is one of the targets for this year for a program that Colorado Parks & Wildlife is developing, and ranching community there is very concerned ... Whatever your ideological position for or against, they are the ones on the ground who will bear a hefty barrel of impacts to their already close-to-the-bone operations ... Editor Bella Biondini has been doing extensive coverage of the local hearings. But she also penned an op-ed piece, “The debate isn’t just about the science,” describing her strong environmental leanings and support for the gray wolf’s reintroduction, but chronicles her concerns with holes in the CPW’s draft plan for reintroduction in Gunnison country and “the incredible challenge at hand.” She calls for the state agency to listen carefully to the people who will be most impacted by this action ... And to sure the community understood the issue, the Country Times published a strong column by respected rancher/environmentalist Ken Spann outlining the problems the Gunnison County Stockgrowers Association have with the state process. To find out more of this perspective, go HERE.



ALONG THE SAN MIGUEL ... Delighted that former Norwood Post editor Reagan Tuttle has bought Roger Culver’s San Miguel Basin Forum. Once a primary news source for Telluride and the West End, not just Nucla and Naturita, itki’s nice to see a see a Forum newsstand in front of the San Miguel County courthouse again like I used to see 40 some years ago ... Former local Forest Service staffer Bob McKeever leads a free Old West/New West wide-ranging storytelling & discussion group at the Lone Cone Library in Norwood once a week on Wednesdays from 1 to 3 pm. Open to all. Librarian Rhonda Oliver provides coffee, tea, hot chocolate and cookies. 



Janice Gould

TALKING GOURD ... Colorado Springs professor and poet friend Janice Gould passed away in 2019 but has left us many wonderful poems. Here’s an excerpt from The Force of Gratitude (Headmistress Press, Sequim, WA, 2017). Highly recommended.

What Dawn Brings


A solitary raven wings from the piñón

as sky lightens to azure.


Sun warms the kitchen counter and a few ants

venture forth, exploring.


I watch, sipping coffee, intrigued by their industry,

their single-minded purpose.


I wander from room to room, stare out the glass doors,

write a few lines – feeling my way


through stone and mud like the root of a tree,

the smallest tendril


scratching millimeter by millimeter to secure

a place in the world.


-Janice Gould