CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

I have often walked an ocean beach in the early morning when the tide stretches forever to the west in an endless sweep of sand. Cathy’s poem, “MINUS TIDE” reflects on the feelings created on just such a morning.

February often plays with our minds. Eager for the end of winter, we look closely for signs of spring and are rewarded with the leaves and even blooms of the hardy hyacinths. And then? A. late snow makes us wonder, when will winter end? Cathy’s poem. speaks to those moments!

This is the time of year when we think about bleak winter ending  and bright spring beginning.  Now is the time to deep clean the house, thoroughly rake the yard. And yes, a time to imagine new beginnings for ourselves – discard the old and put on the new!  Cathy offers us two poems that reflect this urge to start anew and how our busy daily lives might have something to say about that urge.

Beneath a northwest stormy sky, Cathy offers us a poem with questions about what the stars might know about us.

In 1955 when I first fished with Severin on a troller and watched the Addington salmon trap during August, the corporations owned the salmon traps and and the seiners caught what was left over in the inside waters and fished the ocean where traps wouldn’t last in the swells and storms.  

With Alaska statehood in 1959, the traps, were banned and the corporations competed for the most successful seining skippers to fish for them in the effort to keep the canneries profitable.  The salmon traps had depleted the fish runs and the seiners competed for the salmon still returning to Southeast Alaska and to rivers further down the West Coast. 

The west coast of the Alaska islands bordering the Pacific Ocean not only had pink salmon returning to Southeast Alaska streams but sockeye and chinook salmon migrating to rivers down the west coat of Canada and Washington.  

These were exciting times in the fishing industry 

Riding on a ferry often gives us the feeling of leaving where we’ve been and going somewhere different and separated from what disappears in the ferry’s wake. Cathy’s “Crossing Over” is a companion piece to Lorelie’s Whidbey Island visit post. While Lorelie is visiting another’s home, the poet is returning home. Tim

We are delighted to publish Cathy’s poem, “The Fabric of our Lives”. The poem offers insights into how our lives develop through our relationships to others.