Sculpture, “Bird Totem” by Jan Johnson Doerfer, jdoerfer@sbcglobal.net The artist writes: “This bird altar is an homage to the devastating decline in bird populations due to habitat loss, global warming, and pollution. In less than a human lifetime, we’ve lost almost a third of our birds.” Narrative response by Kathy Swearingen Driftwood Wood edges softened… Read More
Breath
400 million years ago, at the time trees appear on earth so too, creatures of the sea. Surviving mass extinctions and super-continental fissures enough life remained. In the fullness of time, ocean creatures, swam upon the swash line, peeked above the water’s edge, beheld a distant horizon abundant with space time. Without understanding, A protean strength heaves a creature above… Read More
A First Story Includes Us All
We think we know what it means. That story. The one we know from the book of Genesis: A Garden, a serpent, a tree, a naked woman and man. The apple was never there, but added for a painter’s ruby poisoned globe, a scepter with which to Blame: Undocumented refugees Right wing evangelicals Liberal queers Welfare queens. East Coast elites…. Read More
Wild World
I have been in Michigan for almost twenty years now and I still can’t get used to it. Not the Michigan winters, but the Michigan summers. By mid July the wild flowers along the highway, the carnelian dahlias in our yard, the emerald lawns and shiny lake down the road all serve to fill my sense with an abundance of… Read More
Open Places
My peonies have curled up for another winter’s sleep. Knobby dahlia bulbs have been dug and tucked into bed inside a basement shoebox. All the self-seeding cherry tomatoes have been harvested. But in the middle of my Michigan garden, there is an open space I leave it to its own resources. That place has already been claimed. . … Read More