Personal Stories

By John Thompson I want to be the Lord’s stallion! Thick and broad and sinewed And of milky mane, Sun’s fire caught and flashing In my dancing eyes And hooves as sharp and shining As obsidian! I want to feel upon my neck The firm direction of His arms And feel my tensing flanks Beneath…

What if I could give myself a bit more attention? A bit more care? Maybe even a new respect by clearing off a bit of the old clutter? What if this alone could wake me – break me up? Open my eyes to whatever’s in the air? Find a new breath for this pair of…

By John Thompson Sometimes these days I find myself so full of joy and gratitude that I feel like I might just explode. That’s not hyperbole: I really am beside myself, wondering what to do with so much overwhelming energy. I still have my sorrows and grief, mind you, and my discontents, but even when…

Find a place at the edge of a swamp Listen and learn and take in who goes – who stays – what’s eaten – what decays – all the stinks and stews of it in the percolating ooze of a swamp’s necessities until you realize this isn’t all that life’s about When you come away…

by Ray Ruhlen We have an extended family of crows around us, I have fed them daily after lunch for many years, we get along together, the crows, me, and out black cat, Mr. Squeakers, who I take out for a walk after lunch and in that time throw torn up bread for them, They…

by Ray Ruhlen "A crow stood on the burning deck, eating potatoes by the peck"We have an extended family of crows around us, I have fed them daily after lunch for many years, we get along together, the crows, me, and out black cat, Mr. Squeakers, who I take out for a walk after lunch…

… we’d go tramping off the back road through salal and ferns and huckleberries and hike the dry logged-off ridges crisscrossed with wild strawberries tiny and tasty and gritty with sand We’d stomp down tough blackberry vines raveling over the slash of old bones piles of branches the loggers left We’d reach past bramble thorns…

Dad where have you gone? Did you leap quicksilver into a big run of legendary June Hogs now long lost? Or are you too smart for that? Did you break through the trap of extinction holding to the shadows of that dam in back of my mind—thinking but not showing much?   Once in a…

Among my brothers and sisters we don’t send cards on birthdays, but we always try to make time to call — to talk and listen, even if for only a few minutes. These moments are often forgotten but not the sound and warmth of the voice. It was my birthday in the middle of the…

by John Thompson No words can speak the power of “I AM HERE” For when black thunder cracks on blood-red plains The horseman comes, the storm-chaser of dreams His feathered spear raised high he splits the wind And silences the babbling tongues of men. My words mean nothing, nor is my story told But lived,…