The Rowing Endeth

I’m mooring my rowboat
at the dock of the island called God.
This dock is made in the shape of a fish
and there are many boat moored
at many different docks.
“It’s okay,” I say to myself,
with blisters that broke and healed
and broke and healed–
saving themselves over and over.
And salt sticking to my face and arms like
a glue-skin pocked with grains of tapioca.
I empty myself from my wooden boat
and onto the flesh of The Island.

“On with it!” he says and thus
we squat on the rocks by the sea and play–can it
be true–a game of poker.
He calls me.
I win because I hold a royal straight flush.
He wins because He holds five aces.
A wild card had been announced
but I had not heard it
being in such a state of awe
when He took out the cards and dealt.
As he plunks down His five aces
and I sit grinning at my royal flush,
He starts to laugh,
the laughter rolling like a hoop out of His mouth
and into mine,
and such laughter that He doubles right over me
laughing a Rejoice-Chorus at our two triumphs.
Then I laugh, the fishy dock laughs
the sea laughs. The Island laughs.
The Absurd laughs.

Dearest dealer,
I with my royal straight flush,
love you so for your wild card,
that untamable, eternal, gut-driven ha-ha
and lucky love.

Anne Sexton

Wow, I'm here! It looks like I'm going to have to join the living again and add to all of these old posts. I'm so happy to have found a new home with a much more welcoming vibe.

Beautiful and unusual formation of "Frazil" ice in Yosemite.

Nocturnal (Star fall), 2010







Watching the Clock on New Year's Eve

Let's only call this a night,
Eve, if the mood strikes.

Give the hours a hand to go
straight to twelve with a bubbly-pop,

the minutes a push to make it a second past
with the glass raised for the emptying. From old

to new, from then to now's a matter of counting
down: ten to nine to eight, your lips puckered

in place. From seven to six, your sleep-allied eyes
aligning. Between five and four, ready

to take three to two finally unto one, at last, alone,
the television picture going to snow.

© 2010 Maureen E. Doallas

Into The Twilight

Out-worn heart, in a time out-worn,
Come clear of the nets of wrong and right;
Laugh, heart, again in the gray twilight;
Sigh, heart, again in the dew of the morn.
Thy mother Eire is always young,
Dew ever shining and twilight gray,
Though hope fall from thee or love decay
Burning in fires of a slanderous tongue.
Come, heart, where hill is heaped upon hill,
For there the mystical brotherhood
Of hollow wood and the hilly wood
And the changing moon work out their will.
And God stands winding his lonely horn;
And Time and World are ever in flight,
And love is less kind than the gray twilight,
And hope is less dear than the dew of the morn.


~Yeats

Our newest family member, Samuel, and his adoring mama.

We ended up driving through a snowstorm on a night that Seattle's
freeways were at a standstill to be there when he arrived.

Our hearts are full and I am smitten with this little snow man.

Lloyd Kahn claims that shelter is more than a roof over your head. As the author and publisher of over a dozen books on home construction, Lloyd has been grappling with the concept of home, physically and psychically, for over five decades. Situated in the financial and housing crisis, this film profiles Lloyd's ideas on do-it-yourself construction and sustainability.

"I think that craftsmanship is on the wane.  It's not as necessary now as it was 100 years ago to be able to do things for yourself.  I mean, you can't be self sufficient.  When you start raising food you find out "Well, I can't raise wheat, if I'm going to have butter it's going to be...", so the idea is to do as much of that stuff for yourself as you could because the quality of your life would be better."



Many thanks to Margir for sharing this wonderful video about creativity, craftsmanship, living simply, and doing what you can to provide a warm, thriving home and life for yourself and your family.

A winter scene by Timur D'Vatz.





Thank you, snezanabr

The Christmas Ship Parade started in 1954 with one lone sailboat from Portland Yacht Club. Bows of green with some ribbon where tied along the rails and it paraded on the rivers. The next year the parade started to grow. Today, The Christmas Ship Fleet averages about 55 to 60 boats between the Columbia and Willamette River fleets. Things have changed from the first lone ship. Now the displays are brightly lit and can be seen from bank to bank on each river.

The Portland tradition packs restaurants along the two rivers. Many reservations are made a year in advance. Many hotel rooms are booked by mid-summer. Corporation Christmas parties are scheduled around the Christmas Ship Parade schedule. By the thousands every night regardless of the weather Portland-Vancouver residents line the banks of both rivers to watch the parade. To show their appreciation for the all volunteer effort and the performance they give, many homes and cars along the way flash their porch and headlights as the fleet passes.


For many of the boat owners, this is a family Christmas tradition, offering the Portland area thrilling Christmas time parades. Many of the operators also have small private parties for friends and families aboard their vessels during the parade. All costs are borne by the owners.

We go out to my mom and dad's house on the dike,
walk out to the end of a little logging road to an old log boom
and watch in silence as they pass by on the way to their
next stop, where they'll twirl and show off for the audience.

You can hear them coming, standing out there in the dark,
as one of the boats will have Christmas music playing.
This is one of our favorite Christmas traditions.

Honey's gone a-fishin'.

Hahaha...the truth surfaces....Teasel's been getting on Alison's computer and posting pictures of herself!

The Motherland Calls

Our little renovation is moving along but it's only now starting to be nice to look at inside.

Never mind that ~ it becomes a non issue for a few minutes when you can go outside
and see the real beauty. Nothing inside will ever compare to the show nature provides
every day and in so many ways.

Toshio Shibata
Kashima Town, Fukushima Prefecture







Toshio Shibata
Untitled, (Grand Coulee Dam, Douglas County)






From the page: Joy of Giving Something, Inc. (JGS) is a not-for-profit corporation dedicated
to the photographic arts. It was established in 1998 by Howard Stein, considered one of the
early developers of the mutual fund industry, as the philanthropic framework for an extensive photography collection, that continues to grow in volume and scope.


Today, JGS funds the creation of fine art books on contemporary photography, publishes its
own artist-edited journal Witness, and produces documentary DVDs that showcase artists at work. Photographs from the JGS collection are made available to public institutions both in loans to major museums around the world and smaller travelling exhibitions, generated in-house.

"A Cat is an example of
sophistication minus
civilization."

author unknown


I don't get around SU as much as I used to or would like to, but I took
a turn through Harriet's place this morning and what a great place it was.

Grab a cup of coffee and go knock on her door for a visit.

This is a video from my cousin who lives near Puget Sound.  They were out for a
boat ride with friends last weekend and happened upon a pod of 'negligent
homicide' whales. 

Breathing space

Perhaps no place in any community is so totally democratic as the town
library. The only entrance requirement is interest.
- Lady Bird Johnson