What a prompt for pondering and discussion from my friend Tyrean Martinson’s book – Pocket Sized Jumble Writing 500 Prompts – this time, right? A lot of us know trenches only from books or from the movies – and thank goodness for that! My Master’s thesis in Literary Science was about WW I literature by […]
To Ponder
Letter: The Mountain is Yours. Go and Take It.
There was a time in Biblical history when in order to establish more property for a people in which to live they were given the mountain and told to go and take it. There was a time in our country’s history when “in order to establish a more perfect union” the Founding Fathers envisioned an […]
Letter: Stop the DuPont Gravel Mine Expansion- Save the Sequalitchew Creek
Submitted by Save Our City-DuPont. How many of you love to hike the trails in DuPont, particularly, the beautiful Sequalitchew Creek Trail leading down to Puget Sound and the trails through Edmond Marsh? CalPortland, which currently dry mines over 400 acres of land in the northern part of DuPont, has submitted a proposal to the […]
Across the Fence: Wunderbar
Even though you might not use the Germanism in the English language that I chose to discuss today, you will probably immediately understand its meaning. Wunderbar (pronounce: ‘voondah-bar), just like the German term wundervoll (pronounce: ‘voondah-foll), is translated as wonderful. There is no big surprise in the similarity of the words in German and in […]
Letter: The Box in the Attic – surviving loss
It lay in the attic near the window – the window such as it was. Eons of wispy cobwebs filtered what little light existed to barely reveal the presence of the old wooden crate nearly obscured in the semi-darkness. Approaching cautiously – the combined fears of falling through the ancient flooring; the startling scurry of […]
Letter: Not Alone
“I sat down on a rock and cried.” My brother was recounting for me what happened that night of July 4, 1979. Just a few days shy of this coming July 4, we were out fishing for salmon on an absolutely beautiful stunning morning. Neither of us got a bite much less catch anything but […]
Letter: His Dog’s Name? Dharma, Not Drama
In Indian religions, dharma is commonly understood as referring to behaviors that sustain life. Like? Like how a dog behaves. Like we humans would do well to behave. Here are the opening lines of Billy Collins’ poem “Dharma.” “The way the dog trots out the front doorevery morningwithout a hat or an umbrella,without any moneyor […]
The Prom Queen . . . Maybe
Kathy recognized a good deal when she saw one. She loved living close enough to Tacoma, Lakewood, Fircrest and University Place. She wasn’t old enough to own her own car . . . yet, but she got around “just fine thank you” . . . even with just a bike. She took a school bus […]
Let’s Talk! – Purple Crocus Spring
The moment I discovered this prompt in my friend Tyrean Martinson’s book, – A Pocket-Sized Jumble of Writing of 500+ Prompts – I was transported into our backyard one spring afternoon this year. I was watering our beds during an unusually dry period, and out of the corner of my eyes I glimpsed something purple. […]