The Academy of American Poets offered an event of poets reading their favorite poems by other poets. Joy Harjo hosted the hour and over four thousand people logged on the hear them live. You can listen my clicking the link in the caption. The meme above is merely a screenshot.

Without Poetry, we lose our way.

—Joy Harjo, U.S. Poet Laureate & Academy of American Poets Chancellor (2019– )

Spring Morning

When it is cold enough at night,
spring's strawberries are sweeter
in the morning.

In the morning I woke before
the sun blushed all across
east and west, a gathering 

warmth slid around the Cape
and over Tillamook Head. 
Before hard day pushed past,

pink dawn had trailed her fingers
all round the sky. In the morning 
I bent to berries'

green tipping over into red.
In that morning, red juice 
ran down his chin.

•

Even though I’ve already made the herbed dressing, wild rice and mushroom casserole, twice baked potatoes, cranberry bread, pumpkin pie, I still have to make the Waldorf salad and roast the Brussels sprouts. I bought a wild fillet of sockeye salmon. We will eat flesh this day, our only seafood or meat of the year. I will pan-poach with lemon, garlic, butter, and wine. Or maybe with soy sauce, ginger, toasted sesame oil, and garlic . . . Gary seems to find it funny.

Anyway, I prepared most of this post a couple of days in advance because I didn’t want to be too busy. The holiday cards are all addressed to go out on Monday. I mean to slip handwritten notes into a couple of them. (I always mean to do that and never do.) A few gifts going to people far away are waiting to be wrapped and boxed for mailing. On Sunday I deliver a dozen shawls to the gallery in Manzanita. We have not driven there even once this year!

This morning I found an email from a small yarn company that has gone completely, and successfully, online this year. They offered a long list of of thank-yous to many specific people. The list ended with thanking their customers, like me. But it was the first block of thank-yous that led me to save the email in my covid folder: “Thank you to our fellow taxpayers, Congress, the SBA, and Columbia Bank for loans and grants. Thanks to Washington State for health safety cautions and unemployment benefits, and to the Kitsap Economic Development Council for weekly seminars on how to cope with COVID.” They are optimistic about their future. “Because of you, we are back on our feet, getting stronger, and feeling more determined than ever to make this a 100-year company. Only 80 more years to go.”

Well, I feel gratitude too. Thank you here to a great many people who read my blog, who respond to particular posts, ideas, and questions.

Most of the people I have known in my life have given me something good to keep. Just among my teachers I treasure studio skills and experiences from Del Hansen and Bob Gee when I was still a girl, and thoughtful perspective from Darlene Sherrick and James May, and serious artistic growth with Patti Warashina and “Jack” Marshall and Howard Kottler. They changed my life. Sherrick chose me for Honors History. Harriet Koenig stepped in three times to turn my life: a Design class, a conference, my first teaching job. Thank you.

You are probably avoiding the news, but an architect designed a prank Trump website, and this page is my favorite: https://djtrumplibrary.com/portfolio-item/tax
Happy Thanksgiving! Humor is back!

•

•