New work from the River Writers, May 4, 2012
By Doris Earle
Hey there!
Are you listening?
Birds are singing!
Butterflies are winging!
Bells are ringing!
Vines are clinging!
Stars are winking!
Are you watching?
Spring is springing!
The following are by Marylyn Cork from exercises at the River Writers’ annual retreat at
Priest Lake on May 4. Seven members participated in the retreat, hosted for the second
year by Kathy Vancil at the Priest Lake Community Church. Additional work from the
retreat will appear on the library website after the May 18 meeting if club members
remember to bring it with them.
Assignment: Write about nature. Include the following words: hard drive, stapler,
telephone, car, billboard. (15 minutes allowed).
Gee, I don’t know where to go with this assignment! I’m a lover of nature, to be
sure, but combining that with the above words seems impossible.
I guess I could say my love of nature and the outdoors is my hard drive, spurring
my appreciation of green and growing things, like beautiful flowers—and sunsets,
waterfalls, wildlife, and so much else. Birdsong is much more compelling to me than the
ring of a telephone, and I have just as hard a time hearing it now that my ears have gone
bad. One of my favorite pastimes to engage in with my sister and boon companion,
Rachel, is to climb into her car and go for a drive just to look at the sights of the
countryside. We are so fortunate in this area to live amidst nature’s beauty, with always
something lovely to feast one’s eyes upon. Mother Nature spreads it all out before us, in
her own version of posting her accomplishments on a billboard. She’s a great selfpromoter!
She fastens green leaves on the trees as effortlessly as one fastens sheets of paper
together with a stapler, and colors them through the growing season until they fall lifeless
and brown in the fall. Then she pastes snow on bare limbs to create picturesque
sculptures. I feel more at home in the out-of-doors, more at peace with myself and the
world than anywhere else. I especially love tree-covered mountains and all that they
contain and symbolize. I feel at home in the mountains. They are my refuge and my
strength, my ever present help in times of trouble and discouragement.
Assignment: Write down ten words that you think are most beautiful. Write a short story
about one of them. (15 minutes).
Words: melody, brook, lovely, dawn, snowflake, perfume, graceful, waterfall, joy, love.
I think melody is one of the most beautiful words in the English language. I enjoy
the sound of it tripping off the tongue, three syllables that combine to form a simple word
that describes a plethora of beautiful sounds that fall pleasantly on the ear. Who doesn’t
thrill to beautiful music—whether it be the haunting strains of “Danny Boy” or the
plaintive “September Song”, a lilting piano composition by Chopin or Lizt, Gregorian
chant, lively folk music—or any other of dozens of favorite melodies of pathos or joy.
Then there’s the music of a child’s laugh, expressing his delight in living, the purr
of a contented cat, and sounds from nature—the sough of the wind through swaying
treetops, bird song, the tinkle of wind chimes, the trickle of water over rocks in a brook,
the soothing roar of a waterfall in the distance, the thrilling boom of a sudden
thunderstorm over the mountains on a hot July day. Even the music of a lovely poem read
aloud by someone who really does it well.
When I was young I used to ask myself which of the five senses I would prefer to
lose if I had to give up one. I could best get by without my hearing, I decided. How
foolish I was! Now there are so many sounds I miss being able to hear!
Assignment: Write at least two haiku poems in the 5-7-5 syllable pattern. (15 minutes)
Three untitled, 1 titled
Bare, brown Montana
(5)
hills supine in mid-day sun (7)
slumber like doped beasts (5)
Bare hills wear wrinkled
hides, sprawl in warm sunshine like
drowsy, sated, dumb beasts
White mock-orange dances
on green hillsides under skies
as blue as lupines
Titled: Saskatoon (service berry)
Kalispel maidens
dressed in white buckskins dance like
feathers in the wind
And here are three haikus by Kathy Vancil
Prairie dog looks out
Searching sunlit grasslands near
No talons today
Campfire rings dry ground
Paper, kindling, wood and gas
No matches, cold night
Ivory soap in mouth
Sudsing tongue and teeth afresh
Cleans words up again
-30-