Jules is in Ghana for a semester at Legon University. She has sent numerous emails about her time there and they echo so many of my experiences! She has been to so many places that I also went to. It is so cool to think that my footsteps fell on top of Sarah's and then hers on mine. Three friends have ventured to this place on three separate occasions and it is nothing but infinite and who knows who will follow? I am toying with going back for school. It think Jules has the right idea. She is taking classes which include Twi, indigenous religions, Ghanaian history and drum and dance. And what is even cooler is the fact that Jules is visiting Orphanage Africa. When she writes about the kids and the women that work there I just want to burst. I am overwhelmed with jealousy and excitement. Africa was such a nothing. I never thought of it. I never cared and now it is so huge. The African studies class that I am taking plus Jules' emails are reminding me everyday that I have only done half the work for my time in Africa. I want to set up something permanent. Saralita and I have tossed around ideas for Engineers Without Borders and I have been trying to think of something meaningful that I could coordinate with the school. But my thoughts need to be turned into action.

Do you want to meet my red HOT crew, the North Bend Berserkers?












Chris, Kyle, Maloney, MJ, Ryan and Rachel


Do you want to see what we do?

Bake apple crisp cakes...

and clear logs off the trail ...



Scale high rock faces....






carry heavy tools...

transplant ferns...

throw rocks...

and light ourselves on fire...

It is a measurless hour,
quiet, like a stream at twilight
is quiet, murmering its own sound,
murmering its watery prose.

The yellow light is ripe
on my face, spilling
over my lap, dripping down
to my toes.

It is the kind of light meant
for empty stores
and halloween nights.

If it were not for the people
permeating the darkness,
I would be a ghost.

I have never wanted to be
so much at once. A rip
tide pulls me back
to a feeling I forgot.

It is the midnight hour,
the stillness,
the frictionless love,
that pulls me like a cord
down into this deep caldron.

When there is nothing
in the noises of night
but isolation.

When there is nothing
in my heart but a need
to be, I think the noisless
night is breathing a song.

I try not to listen
but it is not there.

I DIDN'T REALIZE THE SKY WAS THIS SHALLOW

Has life been happening? I feel so tired I could sink through the cement foundation like honey in hot water. We all know summer is over. It happened last Friday and even though the temperatures may reach 72 degrees and the sun shines with all its might, there is snow on Lolo Peak and there are dead orange and red leaves in our yard. It smells different out there; summer is broken. Sleeping with out a sleeping bag, shot down dead, alpine lake swimming, murdered in its sleep, napping in the burning hot sun, stabbed straight through. Fall rises out of summer fire. No more burning dreams. I'm not anywhere new except beneath my house surrounded by cement feeling like Fortunato, all bricked in with irony. There are three ways off a merry go round. I don't think that I'm going to let it slow down, I'm going to burn it down. It isn't Fall in Seattle...

"Recreate your heart hour after hour for the tired hearts go blind"
(from the Hadith)

the spring break of our freshman year, sarah patrick and i flew to new orleans. it was the same day the war began. i cant find my journal from that time to refresh my memory about the people and places. but i dont need to. i remember that we almost stayed. a lot of people do. half the kids in the hostel originally had a plan ticket home. we took the ferry across the mississippi dozens of times, played sharks and pirates with the local kids, tapped our feet to strumming guitar and grating washboards. this poem was for sarah now its for memories, music, travel, the kids at algiers point, the piano player, the lovely people at india house and the partiers and the circle bar and all the people who lived in new orleans.

The Big Easy

The war is starting and sticky air breaths on our faces,
arms and stomach. Snaking brown river laps our feet,
curling over each toe like sifted powdered sugar
and every breath we take fills our lungs with hot pungent
Cajun spice. We blithely chase our fears with sips of mango
and spilt plastic cups of New Orleans’ cheapest brew.

Night falls slowly in a lazy southern city and street bands
play for old men, young girls, witch doctors, palm readers,
accountants, homeless and wonder lust teenagers alike. Dance
in the moonlight, swing our arms like monkeys and skip
around, through and under while jazz strums and girls yelp
and raucous laughter spills under the moon’s streaming beams.

Catch the rainbow beads dripping from the torrid sky,
wring the strands from our hair and watch the dripping
puddles form on the cool, cement floor while piano players
tap out an easy pace and children scramble like sharks over
yellow and red and blue metal. We call it life and let it slip
away into peyote smoke. We call it home and never leave.