Yards..for Halloween

Pumpkin bags full of
wizard treasure sit
around town ready to burst
wide open at the sounds of
kiddies...
Alana no longer puts up
her myriads of ghosts and
goblins falling from her house
when her kids moved.
I miss those spooky shapes.
Rick puts up his treasure
trove of Casper, Witches,
and Scooby Dooooo.
Jason carves intricate faces
on pumpkins...
All the kids love Halloween.
Drew was excited to "join the game".
Adults and kids draw together
dressing up or dressing down
just for fun.
Grandma's hand out candy...
Connie, blogging, makes a
colorful, intricate, flashing
story...
and people laugh.
Drew only wants me
to be a mummy...he
hasn't seen one yet!

DOWNWINDERS

I chose this book of Dianne's to talk about instead of A Brief History of Male Nudes in America, short stories, just because I feel part of the whole Downwinder problem. I read this book before I purchased it. The big problem with Cancer is that you don't know exactly where it came from, so you can't go out and sue the world. Ranchers and sheepmen knew what was happening when cattle and sheep died, but proving it to the very ones that thought it all right to bomb the hell out of Utah, was very difficult. I certainly relate to the anger felt by so many and still suffer. When I finished radiation and chemo, the numbers coming into the St. George Cancer center had tripled in just that period of time. I hear it's higher now. All those who drank radiated milk and ate the food ash fell on are now going through cancer. How long it will affect the land...plutonian? Generations still. I'ts hard to believe that our government would bomb the hell out of us just to find out how bad a nuclear war could be. As if Hiroshima wasn't enough. Dirty Harry was three times the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
My sister LaRae, who died of ovarian cancer. actually worked for a time at the test site. So did my brother-in-law, Pole. Both died of Cancer in their fifties.
So many others have joined them.
This book, though a novel, is timely with some facts about the testing that are very true. Diane and her husband did an excellent job. The story line, about a murder, only brought out the facts of many more murdered.

POET? ME?

I read Dave's book and images curled from sandrock and floated to the tops of canyons. Metaphors hung from cracks. I so enjoyed those slick-rock slopes and red
drifts of Indian Lore. I re-read my own and couldn't snag a single, standout, upright metaphor! What's worse, I didn't want to add any. I didn't even care!
Let's face it. I'm not a born poet...
Linda called and told me about dreaming that her elephant was out in the ocean filling his truck straight out full of salt water..and what did that mean? That girl dreams in metaphors. Her elephants are always trumping and tromping up and down her dreams and she is there saying..What does it mean? What are they trying to say? If it's not elephants, it's swans or deer or long-necked giraffes or some other damn metaphor. Linda is the dreaming poet. What else can she write?? Oh don't get me wrong, I'm not stopping my poetry. If I want to write a damn poem, I will...rhymned or not. Metaphor or not.
I just want you to know that I'm writing prose sometimes just to explain why I'm not a poet, if for no other reason. Like now. All these good poets just suddenly got on my nerves. So I was born with no TALENT! What the hell. They put me out in a field to water. That's just water on thirsty plants. No metaphor about that. I will continue to write just exactly what I want to in spite of the world's great poets.

MOVING ON

Enjoy, a moment, Fall in Boulder
Breathtaking...
I am moving on.
Fall, here in Panguitch
has come and gone.
Mounds of partly-dried
yellow leaves flit
when the wind blows.
Snow is on its way.

I must look for new moments
new creations.
Moving on.

WRITING CONFERENCE PRESENTERS

DIANNE NELSON OBERHANSLY, DAVE LEE, RAYMOND SHURTZ

What a group we were,
writers and presenters,
At the Hogsback Heritage Project
as hunters gathered on Boulder Mountain
for opening day, turning our back
on hunting for three intensive
"deer days".

Dave Lee, Utah's first Poet Laureate in 1997,
received a Commendation Award in 2002.
In 1999, his collection News From Down too the Cafe
was nominted for a Pulitzer Prize and was a finalist
for Unites States Poet Laureate.
His poem Kaiparowits Pleateau
blankets a wall in GSENM's information center
in Escalante and Wayne County.
He is retired from teaching and came to Boulder
for Cheryl and her mother LaRae.
He wrote poems of crazy women in Texas (or someplace)
on the theme of Women
and made us laugh ...and beautiful poems of
rocks and ledges that made us want to cry.
He taught us metaphor and similie
from his writing and writing
and we were blessed.

Dianne Nelson Oberhansly was born on a
Utah Homestead Ranch ninety miles from the Nevada Test Site.
Her collection of short stories,
A Brief History of Male Nudes in America
won the Flannery Oconnor Award.
What a wizard she is with words.
They weave like a Navaho blanket
throught her presentation.
She makes me want to create words
and more words.

And Raymond, my great Heaven! 30 plays?
I had to read that twice.
I DID NOT KNOW THAT.
Where have I been?
You have gained by teaching;
the tools to find ways for people to
open up and create!
I so enjoyed your presentation.
You seemed both so knowledgeable
and yet more hesitant at the same time.
Appealing somehow.
You know what you know.

I, the writer, was hit with such
a barrage of word and action that
I still can hardly move.
Dave Lee's first class poetry reading
actually did remind me some of
Bohemian Cowboy.
You certainly have to read well
to hold people for an hour and half.
Cheryl, can you hold forth with
even more expansion and depth?
I wouldn't wonder.
You are one to amaze
this old Auntie.
I think you could pull people
out of the hat that the rest
don't believe exists.
And smile and enjoy the moment!

Hogsback Heritage Project

I am returning to Boulder
with it's ripgut fences,
and ripgut memories
amid new faces
ready to write.

The writing conference,
Boulder Cliff Notes
Words and Place,
writing that will
stir angry protest
and unstated rebellion
of past years,
yet love for place
and people.

I want to resolve conflict
reach beyond the past
into the future...
Lay to rest those
haunting feelings
and walled pride.

Laugh with others
that love Boulder.
Let love survive
and be strong.
Going beyond the rest...

I'll write. I'll think.
I'll plan and let
the miracles come.

Macular Hole

A macular hole is a tear
in the retina of the eye
as you can see in the photo.
The eye is
filled with a gel-like substance
called vitreous that shrinks
and pulls away with age.
Some cases it adheres
unable to pull away,
the tissue stretches and tears
making a macular hole.

I find a picture of this hole
fascinating in it's color and
form...in the complex
working parts of the eye.
Marveling that
our vision provides
such diversity in colors,
shapes, and texture
within a single eyeball.

To repair the tear
the gas bubble
pushes against the tear
to replace and restore
eyesight once more.

The healing of the
eye only matches the
marvel of medicine.

PHOTO OF BUTCH CASSIDY'S FAMILY HOME

I took this picture of the old family home on my way to Richfield the other day. Butch has become part of Southern Utah History. I took his sister, Lula Parker Bettinsen for a drive down the canyon one day when she was trying to sell some of the Parker's property in Circleville Canyon. She told stories of what she knew about Butch as she was born after he left home. At 92 she wrote the book Butch Cassidy, My Brother dictating to her granddaughter.
I wrote the following poem after reading her book.

GRANDMA PARKER

Lula, the sister of Butch,
Did what she wanted to do.
Wrote the story of LeRoy Parker
when she was 92.

Now go and read that book.
See what she had to say,
This poem is about her Granma,
The decision she made that day.

Grandma pushed a handcart
Across the lonely plain.
She pushed and pulled and tugged
Through beating sun and rain.

She crossed the many rivers
And suffered heat and cold,
She climbed the Rocky Mountains
On and On that handcart rolled.

The elders said they had made it
Would roll into Salt Lake that day.
Everything that Grandma owned
In that handcart lay.

As she pushed through Emigration Canyon
After monts on the westward road,
She suddenly couldn't take it.
She could not stand the load.

Giving a scream and a mighty shove
She pushed toward the edge
Then that handcart teetered
And she shoved it off the ledge.

All her things went flying...
The handcart broke apart.
She walked into Salt Lake City
Satisfaction in her heart.