Thursday, June 26, 2008

June along the Little Spokane River




As I sat inside today, emailing and putting off doing laundry and dusting, I suddenly realized how crazy it was to be sitting inside staring at a computer screen. So, I took the camera and off I went to record the beauty all around me. These pictures were taken just down the road from our house. I sure didn't have this scenery in Garden Grove, CA!

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

So embarrassing!

I know we've had over seven years of "Bushisms," but he never ceases to amaze me. This gaffe is even more embarrassing than the "Thanks, Your Holiness, awesome speech" quote. Read it and weep:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/24/bush-to-filipino-presiden_n_108985.html

Monday, June 23, 2008

Brendan on the Little Spokane

We didn't get to do this in Garden Grove!

For Rick

"If the person you are talking to doesn't appear to be listening, be patient. It may simply be that he has a small piece of fluff in his ear.” --Winnie The Pooh

Love,

Erin

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Molly


My niece! The first baby girl in our family in 39 years.

So perfect and pretty. So full of possibility....

Friday, June 20, 2008

some thoughts that came on the arrival of the solstice


Summer’s seduction
Makes it easy to forget
As I walk my tentative feet
On its warm carpet of grass
I no longer remember
The sting of biting ice
The cling of stubborn mud.
It whispers in the breeze
You are safe.
You are warm.
The sky is your ceiling.
No need for shelter.
Walk unafraid.
It’s time to forget
The cold that split your skin
The grey that weighed heavy on your head.
See my flowers dance
My rivers tumble.
Let my smile lift you
From east to west.
And just like that
The cold that came before and
The gloom that would not go
Is erased.
Belief comes too easily.
I slip into a certainty
That all that is now
Is all that was
And will always be.

Monday, June 9, 2008

The Metal Sculptor


He pounds metal into shapes
Heats it, bends it to his vision
Faces emerge from his torch
A black Madonna and child
A primitive mask
A revered saint
A smiling sun
He weaves straight steel
Into intricate patterns
Celtic knots
Blooming flowers
Trailing leaves
From something cold
He brings traces of life
A moose on the river
Bison on the prairie
A kayak on the waves
And if his creation
Disappoints him
He heats it again
Pounds and twists
Cuts with an arc of light
Until he is satisfied
And I am sure sometimes he wishes
It were that simple with me
That he could take a torch
And fix me to his liking
Cut me into something
Stronger and shining
But I am not so easily bent
I don’t respond well to heat
It makes me sick
I react so much better
To a cooler touch
And even then I am not
So easily re-formed

Sunday, June 8, 2008

A poem about the slow onslaught of spring in Spokane. I'm grateful we've moved on (almost) to summer...

The Thaw

It is not in the bleak midwinter
That I feel the cold
For when the darkness of the dimmest days swaddles me
I sleep.

The indirect angles of the sun’s rays
Soften the sharpness
Of each bare branch and brittle bough
And lull me
Into slumber.

It is not the dry, soft secretness of the snow
That breaks me
For it cushions all my senses
And sweeps me
Into numbness.

But the dreadful dripping of the icicles,
The slow softening
Of the once firm and frosty ground
Shakes me from slumber
And I awake.

It is the unraveling of so many layers,
The near-warmness,
The threatening thaw of winter’s end,
That finally chills me
Into a deep shiver.

The shards of sharp sunlight
Glare on the gray spots,
Expose the cracked skin, the crumbling ground,
The dead things long denied,
And I see.

It is when all is laid bare and brown,
That I am exposed,
Facing the unfrozen, the long untended,
I shudder unguarded
Against the certainty of spring.

--Erin Davis

Triumph on the Little Spokane!


This may be as adventur-ous as I get, but I do love the Little Spokane River! Now if we could just get summer up and running this year, I could kayak without shivering...