Get Out of Portland!

Get Out of Portland!

The lists goes on and on. A long miserable soliloquy that is really only a fraction of the names that it could be. A list that leans back to the first time black people stepped onto this soil and were bought and sold on a block. No thought to their needs. Their pain. Their humanity.

Sunrise

Sunrise

I could see the sunrise on Tacoma this morning. The volcano best known as Rainier. Snowfields some two hundred miles north were lit peach and pink by the incoming light from a far off star. In between was Loowit. The volcano best known as St. Helens. Moments like that knit… Read More

GOD GIVEN RIGHTS

GOD GIVEN RIGHTS

Yesterday, while Deven Patrick Kelly was out on a killing spree at the First Baptist Church in New Braunfels, Texas, I was at my own church: The Church of the Woods, deep in the Cascade foothills. I was on the search for the delicious little golden caps called chanterelle mushrooms. Unfortunately, I didn’t… Read More

A Green Eyebrow

A Green Eyebrow

Looking through the window at the trees and the fog. The flush of new grass that comes when these Pacific rains return. Peaceful rains. Feeding the thin strip of green which clings to the western coast. An eyebrow of green. A parenthesis. A lover spooned against a mountain range and… Read More

The Benefits of Being Lost

The Benefits of Being Lost

While on my way to Table Rock Wilderness Sunday, I took a wrong turn. Instead of continuing straight on the somewhat paved mountain road, I turned right, onto a gravel road which quickly deteriorated to a mud road. Immediately, I felt I was in unknown territory, but I doubted my… Read More

On the Molalla

On the Molalla

Fluted basalt columns wound into a nautilus turquoise water  moss covered trees rain-licked ferns  slick-capped mushrooms feeding on rich black soil the scent of origin and rot -Naseem Rakha, 2/4/16