The Pacific Northwest is consumed by wildfire and the sandy-eyed persistence of unhealthy air. Yesterday, the Portland metro area claimed the dubious title of worst air quality in the world. Danny and I spent the front part of the week traveling past the Grasshopper fire at Mount Hood, various hot spots along the Gorge, and then south through the Powder River and Tartar fire areas. Along 84 there was some evidence of scorched earth, but most of our view was enveloped in thick smoke, the ghosts of trees. The smoke knows no boundary. Today, winds off the Pacific are clearing my view across the river ever so slowly.

The Pony travels away from the fires, south to Oregon State Penitentiary’s Memorial Healing Garden in Salem. A jewel created by the community, the traditionally structured garden illustrates an ideal nature. Pathways cut precise boundaries between designated spaces — pond, zen garden, meditation bench — a framework to help us see with new eyes. The edges are softened by the cycle of the seasons, such as beautiful, tiny maples leaves that fall on the paths. The prison gardeners sweep and painstakingly prune the trees. Care is the vocation; the garden teaches patience and the experience of seasonal time. Centered within the confines of a prison yard, the garden contrasts sharply with the chain-link fence, razor wire, and guard towers. Like the garden lessons, the writing from our workshops investigates the edges of living a better life when that life is limited and contained by the very nature of imprisonment. Jai’s four-part piece Living Zen meditates on the work of raking. He does this alongside the “avenue” a strip of roadway that separates the Memorial Healing Garden from the bustle of the prison yard. We see nature’s version of this contrast along the Oregon freeways where fires blacken the land right up to the point where it turns lush and green.

Driving down from the pass there is a stretch along Highway 20 that I call the boneyard. Remnants of the trees are licked cleaned, weathered by seasons of rain and sun exposure. As we travel these roads year after year, we learn to read the forest. Natural forces author the stories. Chapters are written by fire, and whispers of new growth appear the following spring. This week, we pray for a pause in this passage so that winds might quell, electrical storms subside, and the wildfires reach containment. | TDS

The cross hatch took all morning. Their journey through time and trials brought them among the trees in a forest of splendor. Before long, they would cantor up to ravines hard to cross, past burnt bridges, and retrofit rope ladders weathered and untrustworthy, spanning the gap. The two climbed down the steep and perilous cliff sides, they swam the rivers of hope, never quite certain but building confidence. Their pace slowed a bit slogging through the mires of despair, but the cross hatch constantly progressed from one sacred corner of the Zen Garden to the other. Working with a will to heal, they crafted their way beyond the boulders that are people, grandfathers, and fathers of old, and other dead relatives, obstacular bits and pieces disrupting the intended pattern. The intrinsic beauty made surreal and all the more evident as they climbed together up the other side of the rifts, no longer pitfalls and deathtraps, but a set of melancholic puzzles along the journey. he youngster becoming far less bound by the unseen dangers and as yet unprocessed tribulations of limbic embrace, they continued to climb, and talk, and laugh. Memories loomed at first then fell away like so much morning mist. The past was observed, memories heard, and a process was experienced. With the bright yellow sun counterpoised to the endless deep blue of unsullied sky above and all around its glow, here and now, the son was high and his light was bright. By that time, the seemingly turbulent cross hatch pattern was nearly completed. In this garden of tranquil introspection, they had resolved to set up base camp on the side of the youngster’s mountain. Snow white, impossible peaks were the backdrop, rife with numinous crags and crevices, marbled grey granite hues in their constancy. The pinnacle was shrouded in wispy mystical cloud cover. From that distance, vacuous winds could scarcely be discerned, calling out a warning to them about former fruitless efforts and false bravado. And the Sherpa knew, from previous pilgrimages, it would take genuine courage not foolish bravery to accomplish the climb ahead. Fortunately, the kid had it and this trek would be worth it. The cross hatch was finally finished, with a sweaty smile and gratitude, by count time mid-day.

LIVING ZEN 2

He woke up that morning with a grin. The sun was shining another molten summers day was about to begin. The summer of ’25, with all its angst and turmoil couldn’t help but to be gorgeous and extraordinary. The atmosphere was full of ambient potential. At base camp three little birds perched upon the loading dock, well wintered wood grain and smooth polished granite pedestals. The perfect all-natural launch pad. The three sang songs of chaotic discontent and mild melodrama from the week before, at first. But slowly the discordant chirping and tweeting edged beyond the party line of discontent, becoming honed, musical and almost reverent. Through simple osmosis, the three with he, and the wind and the trees, the gravel and skree, found a peace and began to climb in earnest. Their adopted proximity to here and now, in the garden, this temple of refuge and restoration at the mountains edge, they had discovered together, at base camp, the little birds found harmony. Flowing, functionally, in and out with novel purity. They became the breath, and the life, and a Living Zen. Twittering into actual accord, together again, after trying times in separate conclaves, the Sherpa saw the pattern and proceeded to work. Subtle in approach, sturdy in example, silent, as much as possible. Together, scaling the ladders and sliding the shoots of historic trauma and emotive discharge, the three birds worked up a magnificent mandala that day. The Sherpa carried the bits too cumbersome, healing may have taken place but the point is the journey, the mystical process, their fellowship, and the practice of it all. Finally, together, the three, like musketeers, smiling in revolt of a rueful past and a crazy baldheaded system that never cared to ask why; which had been holding them down. With their wings not yet formed, still stubby and featherless but growing, they climbed the path, laid the pattern, and sang songs of freedom that Bob Marley would be proud of. It is quite a sight, still seen in the wave and the weave of the rocky skree and its emanating sense of pure serenity.

LIVING ZEN 3

Later, in a week that will be forever forsaken in the mundane, surrounded by featureless miles of austere grey walls, the Sherpa in the hidden garden sat in silent repose; observing the flash and glimmer of bikes and cars. Another year goes by, some with show, others without. Always the mountain remains. The climb must persist and the work is more lifestyle than occupation. This day, at here and in the now base camp, the Sherpa, gardening his own cerebral plot; heard a call across the lane, on the other side of any of the given fences. A not so authoritarian sang out in revelry, from a state of active reprieve. She had received this stasis and internal space despite the doldrums of a hard-pressed day. She sang a song of peace and fostered serenity sharing the experience of her visit to base camp, the more enriched by the pattern which gave her pause and energized her smile. The pattern that was created, climbing the mountains of limbic frustration and malcontent, seeking pure air and the light at the top of the world. The Sherpa was taken aback in the midst of preparing lines and plotting courses for the coming weeks trek, unexpectedly she reminded him of the spot at here in the now and the active Living Zen. She spoke of daily trails and weeks of struggle and a decision while fuming to go to the garden and breath. She sang of thrilling insights and a smile, being tickled in the color of pink. She recalled with joy how happy the pattern left in the sands of the garden made her. “It looks like a vagina and it makes me happy” she said loud enough for the whole mountain to hear, also just as bold and filled with joy she exclaimed “Hooray for the Lesbians!” The Sherpa grinned and waved a hand knowing for sure that lesbians must have mountains to climb too, and in her struggle at here in now the Sherpa knew, they were united. And the mountain remains, and the struggle continues, and the joy is everywhere and available here in the now of every moment. As he considered the blueprint from yet another novel perspective, the Sherpa could not help but see a vagina layered in the pattern. Smiling he went back to preparing the lines and plotting the course, packing for the next trek.

LIVING ZEN 4

Crystal clear pond
Glass-like surface of living water
The mirror reflection of serene blue heavens
Pristine rake lines
Concentric circles and razor straight rows
Reflection of natures mid morning harmony
Dappled koi colors
Crafting chaotic rippled beauty
Reflection of truth in harmonious imperfection
Meandering footprints
Necessarily utilitarian or thoughtless in play
The mirror reflection of Living Zen. | JM

Confined in space and time, a mental state of my own
design. Submerged in the love from within.
Inside this container of mine.
Amir’Whadi Hassan, “This Container of Mine”

Our bodies contain it all — the thoughts, the blood, the guts, the memories and pain, the articulation of our ancestors, the genetic material of the future. Filled with hope and energetic exuberance, they are bound and they are universal. As our friend Walt Whitman asserted: “I contain multitudes.” Well, this week, our writers share myriad insights into strategies for survival when bodily autonomy has been removed by the conditions of incarceration. Travis Asbill stood today in the OSP workshop to deliver a poem with full-bodied expression, the words spilled out in an elegant cascade of truth, profanity, and the faith. He was a cathedral.

We move through the world in these containers that we may forget to adequately acknowledge with the reverence they deserve. Take a moment to simply marvel at your hands. They labor all day with little protest. My fingers are tapping across the keyboard in perfect concert with my language center, moving as quickly as my thoughts command. Of course, these bodies of ours rebel after too little sleep or nourishment, when they have been pushed too far with emotional overload or physical exertion and like a tantrumming two-year-old, they shut down. Fingers refuse to move, brain fogs, eyes close, until there is a physical respite: a nap, a coffee, a walk, a dose of loud music — each of us has a way to reorient and reset our bodies.

To that end, we start with Angela Kim who writes a reflective piece from home — a place of her own (thankfully) far from prison. Angela documents the excruciating realities and dangers faced by women who are incarcerated. In “The Hunger for Validation: Women, Incarceration, and Rebuilding of Self.” Angela shares an honest and moving account of her prison experience, and the insight she gained about herself and her peers:
During my 17.5 years of incarceration, I watched this happen over and over again. Women entered the system already carrying wounds — trauma, poverty, addiction, abuse — and the criminal justice system rarely offered healing. Instead, it compounded their pain. They were processed, reduced to numbers, and treated as less than human. Over time, many began to believe that was all they were worth.
That erosion is not abstract; it is enforced in deeply physical and psychological ways.

Forty-eight percent of women incarcerated were themselves victims of crimes and 95% of women were victims of domestic abuse or sexual violence in their lifetime. With these numbers in mind, it is self-evident our population of female-identified prisoners require great care than a carceral experience provides. While incarcerated Angela taught music lessons and participated in as many programs as possible. She built strong friendships with like-minded and supportive women.

Next we have “One Man’s Hobby Born in a Bomb Shelter” a profile of Ali Mattar by Kurtis Thompson, a prison journalist writing from Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution. Living in the trauma of war-torn Beirut, Ali Mattar found refuge in his writing. His fingers writing over the fear center an occupation that helped him survive:
“It helped me get through that moment,” he said. “Every time we went to the bomb shelter, when we had to segregate ourselves from the conflict, writing came to mind. So, I just stuck with it. All that caused me to focus on writing.”

We end with Jai’s “Jazz Mam” a three-part poem written to the bodily experience of listening to Dave Brubeck quartet. Read the loose-limbed play of keyboard and horn. Here we have dancing fingertips, in this case, they keep time with the ear and the explosion in the heart that only music releases:
A horn, of clear distinction, muddles
it’s way through foggy morning eyes.
With a breath and a shudder,
another breath and a shake,
a surreal hushhh tisk, hushhhh tisk,
the whispering whisk slides across snare.

Jai expresses whole body listening, the transportation that moves a soul over 30-foot walls. Let’s end on this note:
Brubeck! With a
Summer Song for a morning cathedral,
a review where the church pews all sing.
With a smile, I invent a brand-new day.

Thank you for reading to the end. If you found something that resonated with you, consider making a Substack restack, or sharing the work in your socials. We hope to draw more eyes to the beautiful work created by our PonyXpress pool. | TDS

Ali Mattar, an incarcerated person in eastern Oregon, was published in the Quill of Umatilla County Literary Magazine’s second edition. The magazine, created by Pendleton Public Library, accepted his essay in May. Mattar credits his success partly to his childhood environment, where his writing was born.

“Melja!” he said his mother would scream.

This is Arabic for “bomb shelter.” During the Lebanese civil war, Mattar and his family would rush to the basement of a 22-floor apartment building to escape waves of heavy missile strikes in the civilian suburbs.

“I was born and raised in Beirut, Lebanon, so as we lived in the bomb shelters during skirmishes, I learned to write,” he said. “I learned to write voraciously because that’s the only thing you could do.”

Beirut was occupied by Syrian forces from 1976 to 2005. Lebanon-based Hizballah militia car bombings, Israeli invasion and indiscriminate strikes by Lebanon’s own government were part of Mattar’s childhood. From ’76 to ’93, Mattar sometimes spent months underground.

He said between the ages of 10 and 12 in the ‘80s were the worst for him, and writing was his escape.

“I wrote anything a kid would write,” he said. “At the same time, I’d write about the sounds I’d hear, the bombings and what have you, how that scared me … I’d write about it just to try and forget, to help process it all the best I could.”

The fighting was so intense that at one point a bomb partially penetrated the bunker he and his family were in.

“My mother gave us earmuffs to put on to drown out the sounds, but sometimes it wasn’t enough,” he said. “One year, the bombing was so close to our building that the concussion blasted through almost 10 feet of concrete. I didn’t have my earmuffs on all the way, and it blasted me with the concussion. I’ve had ringing in my ears ever since.”

But weathering wartime horrors wouldn’t be the only application for his writing. Mattar’s craft, born in a bunker beneath bombs, bullets and Lebanon’s smoke-filled sky, now gets him through a different kind of concrete container.

Mattar was incarcerated in 2001, just eight years after escaping war by moving to the U.S. He is serving a life sentence, without the possibility of parole.

In his work, “Fuel,” Mattar said writing has been a “way of mentally escaping this aquarium of madness.” The work he submitted to the Quill, however, is a relatively new form of writing to him.

“I’ve only been doing poetry for the last year and a half,” he said. “I usually do essays on several subjects I write about, but this poem was very fun in the moment.”

And despite being a lifelong writer, Mattar’s experience was not a factor for the Quill. In fact, all the submissions were selected through a blind reading.

“The library is thrilled to introduce this collection to Umatilla County residents,” Library Director Jennifer Johnson told Columbia Basin News. “The community is full of talented creators, some of which will be published for the first time through the Quill.”

Institution Work Program Coordinator Ray Peters had encouraged Mattar to participate in the Quill’s submission request.

Peters said, “I’d seen some of his poetry and thought he should try submitting. He’s not just someone interested in writing – he actually writes.”

“Peters has read some of my writing and asked if I wanted to give it a shot,” Mattar said. “I’d told him I publish elsewhere whenever I can, so I said, ‘Why not?’”

But rather than weeks of refining, Mattar relied on a moment’s inspiration for his work.

“After I was approached about this contest, I glanced out my window and wrote about the city of Pendleton,” he said. “It just kind of came to me on Friday, then I worked on it Saturday and Sunday to turn in on Monday.”

Much of Mattar’s writing comes from similar inspiration. His environment continues to play a role in his craft.

“A lot of my inspiration and everything I get is from me sitting on my bunk and looking out the window,” he said.

Back in Lebanon, writing was his window to the outside.

“It helped me get through that moment,” he said. “Every time we went to the bomb shelter, when we had to segregate ourselves from the conflict, writing came to mind. So, I just stuck with it. All that caused me to focus on writing.”

But when first asked about why he entered the Quill’s submission request, he said, “Well, my writing is my hobby.”

What a hobby. | KT

JAZZ, MAN 1
Salubrious secondary notes
Dangling from the cliff faced
Chasms between primary notes

4/4 time
5 6 7 8 time
1 on 1 time
Liquid sonic ripples
Clash and roil together
Like stone pebble raindrops
Endlessly reverberating on a shallow
Half circle lake about the size of the moon

In June wide bright high and fierce
In their laughing leapfrog syncopation
The collaborative fading with seasons turn
The notes seem small distant and alone
Somehow new in the ebb of December
Somehow a betrayal to the uninitiated ear

Tingle tumble jumble
Tapping thumping fingers
Keys attached to cords
Stringed percussion-ary caution
Lithe predawn playing
Brings back the dream
And Muppets scheme

Collaborative efforts of valve
And birdsong with breath
The wind cannot be trusted
Which brings exhilaration
The new song unsung
The old song unmastered
Dishes deconstructed
Foamed and fluoresced

Minstrels of haughty fare
One and all in one, two, three

JAZZ, MAN 2
Black liquorish and mulled brandy wine.
Sweet spicy and seductive notes
Ripple forth from the mind and soul
Of that poor flat head man.
Impossible joy, spiked with dire longing
And deceptively distant hints of loss.
The blues set on holiday in that very special Delta way
That only the nail’s head knows.
His accompaniment seeming just as crafty,
Plucky ducky picking like the petals of some celestial flower.
Timed precisely each fragrant petal perfectly pulled
In forget me not rhythm exactly the same but ever so aloof.
She loves me pluck, she loves me not plick,
She loves me plumb, she loves me not pling,
With a strum held tight, here and there
Just to remind us of a mathematicians sacred key.
She plays the cord with a broken heart
And those nimble spider’s leg fingers.
Strumming out the rhythm like a drum beat
As I sit entranced within her web.
They roil together at the back of the lizard lounge,
With a skinny sweaty man in a green
hard handled suit, bleeding from the ears
having listened so long.
Here’s to their sweet succubus-stations!

Jazz, MAN 3
[Brubeck @ 624 Morning St.]

Cascading falls of percussion,
little soft shoe mallets
on finely tuned tensile strings.
Waterfalls of M.C. Escher sound
roll round and round, cleaning off
the thought rock inside my skull.
Sweet caramel, butter toffee, brazen,
Rum-Ripple-Rikkle and shimmer,
with high bright notes that sparkle
but disassemble my guard.

A horn, of clear distinction, muddles
it’s way through foggy morning eyes.
With a breath and a shudder,
another breath and a shake,
a surreal hushhh tisk, hushhhh tisk,
the whispering whisk slides across snare.
I can hear the metallic chain linking,
it’s trap sings out my own anticipation.
Three play rock steady as one heart,
beating time kept by the master clock,
more intricate than any Swiss chronometer,
as accurate as the universe’s calculus,
keeping even the stars and planets
in line and on time. Brubeck! With a
Summer Song for a morning cathedral,
a review where the church pews all sing.
With a smile, I invent a brand-new day. | JM

Incarceration does more than remove a woman from society — it dismantles her identity. It separates her from her children, her family, her community, and often the very roles that once gave her purpose. What remains is not just isolation, but a profound erosion of self-worth.

During my 17.5 years of incarceration, I watched this happen over and over again. Women entered the system already carrying wounds — trauma, poverty, addiction, abuse — and the criminal justice system rarely offered healing. Instead, it compounded their pain. They were processed, reduced to numbers, and treated as less than human. Over time, many began to believe that was all they were worth.

That erosion is not abstract; it is enforced in deeply physical and psychological ways.

Strip searches are one of the most invasive examples. Women are required to remove all clothing, expose their bodies, squat, cough, procedures justified as security measures but experienced as humiliation. For many, especially those with histories of sexual abuse, these searches are not just uncomfortable; they are re-traumatizing. The body remembers. Each search reinforces a message: your body is not your own, your dignity is conditional, and your consent is irrelevant.

The impact is both mental and physical. Women learn to dissociate, to detach from their bodies in order to endure what is happening to them. Over time, that disconnection becomes normalized. When a woman is repeatedly forced to experience her body as an object under surveillance, it changes how she relates to herself. Shame becomes internalized. Boundaries become blurred.

Layered on top of this is the daily reality of being supervised, corrected, and often demeaned by male correctional officers. Even when overt misconduct is not present, the power dynamic itself is gendered and unavoidable. Women are watched, commented on, and disciplined by men in positions of authority in environments where privacy is nearly nonexistent. Over years, this shapes behavior and self-perception. It reinforces a hierarchy where women are subordinate, controlled, and evaluated.

For women with prior histories of trauma, which is the majority, this dynamic is not neutral. It echoes past abuse. It conditions them, again and again, to navigate male approval, male authority, and male perception as central to their safety and survival.

So, when we ask why women seek validation in relationships, inside prison and after release, we cannot ignore the environment that has systematically stripped them of autonomy while simultaneously reinforcing the importance of being accepted, desired, or protected by others.

Human beings are not designed to live without connection. When stripped of meaningful relationships, women found ways to meet that need within the confines of prison walls. Emotional and physical relationships between women, often dismissed as “gay for the stay,” were less about sexuality and more about survival. They were attempts to feel seen, held, and valued in an environment that constantly denied those basic human needs.

At the same time, nearly every woman had a pen pal boyfriend on the outside. These relationships were built through letters, phone calls, and short visits, spaces where it was easy to present an idealized version of oneself. Hope was constructed in ink and imagination. Many women married these men, believing they had found stability waiting for them beyond the gate.

But reality rarely matched the illusion. In nearly two decades, I witnessed only one of those relationships survive after release. Most collapsed under the weight of truth. You cannot build a lasting relationship on fragments of identity, curated conversations, and two-hour visits. The disconnect is inevitable.

Release does not solve this problem; it often intensifies it.

Women leaving incarceration are suddenly faced with freedom, but also overwhelming uncertainty. They are expected to rebuild their lives, navigate housing and employment, reconnect with family, and manage the emotional aftermath of incarceration. In that vulnerable state, many reach for the first available source of comfort: another relationship.

Despite guidance from mentors, parole officers, and reentry programs advising women to wait, often at least a year, many do not. The need for connection overrides logic. For many women, sex without emotional attachment feels unnatural. What they are seeking is not just physical closeness, but validation, proof that they are still worthy of love.

And so, the cycle continues. One relationship after another, often dysfunctional, each carrying the same unspoken hope: This time I will feel whole.

But no relationship can repair a fractured sense of self. When validation comes from another person, it is fragile, dependent, conditional, and easily lost. Without internal stability, relationships become a place of sacrifice rather than growth.

I understand this deeply because I lived it.

I was once a woman who shaped herself around others. I dressed to please, cooked to satisfy, dieted to meet expectations, and even gave up friendships, all in the name of making a man happy. I placed my worth in someone else’s hands. And in doing so, I lost myself.

What I gained in return was not fulfillment, but misery.

Today, my life looks very different. I am alone, but not empty. For the first time, I am grounded in who I am. I am comfortable in my body, my choices, my direction. I have built a life that reflects my own values, not someone else’s approval. And that independence has brought me more peace than any relationship ever did.

That doesn’t mean the longing disappears. I still lie awake some nights wishing for someone beside me, to feel warmth, touch, connection. That desire is human. But I refuse to sacrifice my dreams, my goals, or my hard-earned independence for momentary comfort.

That is the difference.

There is nothing wrong with wanting a relationship. There is nothing wrong with love. But it must be healthy, and healthy relationships are built by whole individuals, not by people trying to complete themselves through another.

Women, especially those impacted by incarceration, are often taught, implicitly or explicitly, that their value lies in who chooses them. This belief is reinforced not only by personal history, but by institutional experiences that strip autonomy, enforce submission, and normalize the loss of bodily control.

This must change.

Reentry support must go beyond housing and employment. It must include intentional work around identity, self-esteem, bodily autonomy, and emotional independence. Women need tools to reconnect with themselves, to reclaim ownership over their bodies, their choices, and their worth, before they seek it in someone else.

Because the truth is this:

They are already enough.

I wish I could hand that understanding to every woman I’ve known. I wish I could spare them the years spent chasing validation in places that could never sustain it. But this is work that each person must come to on their own.

What we can do is speak honestly about it. Name it. Normalize the struggle without excusing the harm.

Women deserve connection, love, and partnership, but not at the cost of themselves.

And when a woman finally learns to stand on her own, rooted in her own worth, something powerful happens:

She no longer needs to be chosen.

She chooses. | AK

Confined in space and time, a mental state of my own
design. Submerged in the love from within.
Inside this container of mine.
An urn filled with burning desire, ignited by a love that
Inspires. Consume by this fire from within.
Inside this container of mine.
A wave upon the shore, a tsunami of passionate force, refusing
to be ignored as it fills me from within.
Inside this container of mine.
A hurricane of emotions through my mind, destructively blowing
an indiscernible commotion, whipping about from within.
Inside this container of mine.
Nature laughs with humorous laughter at the sequence of
Natural disasters, caused from love sought after, elusive till
Finally captured and fills me inside.
Inside this container of mine. | AH

I miss Odysseus: my heart is melting.
The suitors want to push me into marriage,
but I spin schemes. Some god first prompted me
to set my weaving in the hall and work
a long fine cloth. I said to all my suitors,
‘Although Odysseus is dead, postpone
requests for marriage till I finish weaving
this sheet to shroud Laertes when he dies.
My work should not be wasted, or the people
in Argos will reproach me, if a man
who won such wealth should lie without a shroud.’
They acquiesced. By day I wove the web,
and in the night by torchlight, I unwove it.
The Odyssey, Book 19 translated by Emily Wilson

As The Odyssey opens, crafty Penelope has held the suitors at bay for three years with her scheme. Setting the loom in the hall has allowed her to hide in plain sight, letting the men think that she is diligently working toward choosing a husband. One of her enslaved maids has ratted her out and the wolf-like suitors circle her son Telemachus to force a decision. Director Christopher Nolan’s film sets Penelope’s chamber behind what looks like a Shoji (Japanese sliding screen door) that allows her to watch the suitors’ unruly behavior in the Great Hall. In the film adaptation, the screened wall effectively hides Penelope, so the men seem unaware that their boorish behavior is on full display. At her loom, she keeps a guarded eye on Telemachus, who is in danger losing his line to the throne, and possibly his life if Odysseus does not return. Penelope is contained by the will of the gods, the laws of kings, and the assignment of her sex. Like her warrior husband, she subverts the power using the tools at hand — the protected space of her chamber, her labor at the loom, and her wily intelligence — to construct a shield, make a refuge, and ultimately control time. Penelope demonstrates the difference between being contained versus being confined. Even in a world where the gods and men would have her bound, her intelligence provides her with a means of escape.

Writing from Snake River Correctional Institution, Joshua Plourd describes his version of escape in On Writing: The True Gathering Place:
My most comfortable pen wrapped lightly in optimistic fingers, knowing there is no limit to the possibilities that can indeed manifest. This is where the walls give way. Feeling every curve and bend, this pen brings life to my deepest thoughts, only limited by the attempt to unveil the fractal pattern of the script within.

Richard Owens and Mitchell Adair draw detailed portraits of their childhood refuges from a river in Sacramento to a farmyard in the shadow of Mount Hood. This ability to recreate the feelings of those place are a comfort within confining concrete walls.

Consumes by Richard Owens, Deer Ridge Correctional Institution
… river cut a washed in unbroken streams
parting the coppery soils, revealing pock-marked mud banks, glades,
holes of wet soaked bullfrogs, massive, abandoned tadpoles …

The Backyard by Mitchell J. Adair, Snake River
At its center, the grass harbors an aluminum flagpole supporting an American flag that remains lit through the night. It is sheltered by a red single-story barn, pump house, and cottage that opens to an eastern view.

The world comes alive in language that twists along the riverbank or flaps in time to the summer breeze like a flag. Brittany Vogel’s childhood had very little refuge, as she described it in her letter to a younger self. Her life has been tough. A story told in workshop by Brittany is a mix of salty language, her wry point of view, and a heart full of tenderness for her son. This story recounts her mother’s generosity.

Good Deeds to be Remembered by Brittany Vogel, Coffee Creek
The bus came around the corner and I grabbed the bags and got on the bus. Then the group of homeless got on the bus, which never happened before. At the light the next thing we knew, the guy with the package of socks held them up and asked, “Who needs new socks?”

Tuesday one of our participants joined the workshop and said, “This is my favorite two hours of the month.” We arrange the tables to form a central open space, as if we are sitting around a firepit. Faces light up as we read, listen, compare notes. This is the ritual and a good story is the container. Christopher Nolan’s version of The Odyssey is fun, and the conversations that I have had with people about it have been lively. Every time I thought, well that’s not in Emily Wilson’s translation … I kicked myself for being snotty. Every version we have ever encountered of this 3000-year-old story has been reimagined, rescored, and translated for us. The epic was told, long before it was assigned a text. It is a story that comes alive in the voice of the teller. And so, we hand over our trust to the next author who weaves the warp over and under the weft to sing of ambiguous heroes and lost kingdoms, of the humanity of monsters, and the bravery of the nameless … and sometimes to meet the moment of the time, she may be required to undo a day’s work. | TDS

RECOMMENDED READING

Gleaming with points of brilliance,
a trillion suns, sparkling as flashing pinnacles
or split second crest of tiny waves,
here and now gone, consumed by slightly greater waves
chopping in turn to compose even larger fluid motions
moving down the stream, barely there,
the water was once so much higher,
now a barren, river cut a washed in unbroken streams
parting the coppery soils, revealing pock-marked mud banks, glades,
holes of wet soaked bullfrogs, massive, abandoned tadpoles mysteriously-legged
sloshing about below soil surface levels they’ll never
quite make, drowned branches defeated, bent
reaching fingerlike into rivulets and bens at the edge
stripped nearly leafless by torrents of late winter
snow melt, descending from mountain top sierras
now here somehow, weeping
delicate pathways through hills and blessing
with mis the thirst of the fields, sacred,
contained in the flesh of tomatoes and corn, then
dripping on seeds from which they were born
beneath a Sacramento sun | RO

To me writing is to express the churning cognitions of the mind moved by the spirit and lit by the flame of the soul. When the blank page bows before the unabashed potential of human creation my mind flashes to unite with this wonder.

My most comfortable pen wrapped lightly in optimistic fingers, knowing there is no limit to the possibilities that can indeed manifest. This is where the walls give way. Feeling every curve and bend, this pen brings life to my deepest thoughts, only limited by the attempt to unveil the fractal pattern of the script within. My spirit sings what’s confessed by the soul. I rise from the hollowness of material things, moving aside for the ember of pure awareness to kindle the contour of my intent.

There are few things within the narrows of societal convention that liberate me, that inspire such hope, reaching the illicit, lawless depths of my inner being. It is here that no self-conscious analysis or critical self-leverage can dim. This is the place where eternal spirit resides, like a long-awaited union with the profound. A spring flowing from the mother of the cosmos, where the bay of souls speak to the eternal and the distressed hollow fill with the alluring dance of life.

I cannot tell you what it looks like, that was the task of those that came before me, I can only tell you that it feels like an artesian spring of new love that blooms in the heart of the innocent lover. A limitless horizon that carries the weighted determination of the perpetual seeker. It’s the warm sunshine that illuminates snowy peaks. The quietest contentment of crisp dew, or an ecstatic state brought on by communion with the divine. To be One, wholly feeling, purely being. Writing is my constant companion made just for me. | JP, 2018

Do you ever take your socks off after a long day and have that damn ring around your leg? I know I have. Drives me crazy. Have you ever heard that saying, “From sugar to shit…” If not, you will understand it once I tell you this story.

My mother and I got on the bus that runs down the 101 Highway from Depoe Bay to Newport. We needed to go to Walmart while my son was at school and before the dogs went crazy. (There were three of them all with a short attention span and when they lost it we had neighbors who complained.)

All kinds of people ride that bus. From the homeless to those heading to work and (believe it or not) sightseers enjoying a ride down the highway. My mom and I enjoyed our rides. I would listen to my music. My mom would people watch while both of us craned our necks out the windows. When we got close to Walmart, I turned off my music and got ready to start the race through the store.

There is a group of homeless people who sit by the bus stop outside the Walmart parking lot. Sometimes they have a dog. Mom almost always gets the dog some food. This time the dog wasn’t there and she wanted to get them all socks.

It was 20 minutes before the bus returned. I had a smoke on the walk to the store, while we reviewed the list one more time — knowing where all these things are in the store. I crushed the cigarette under my shoe and through the doors we went. We grabbed a cart and the was race on. Fruits and vegs first, then the frozen food and so on. Halfway through, I veered off to find some things for my son and me. This time, I had to get socks as well.

Ma was better at watching the time. To find each other we played Marco Polo. That’s how I knew it was time to go. Of course, other people played the game as well. Being a 30-year-old child, I screamed, “Stranger danger! You’re not my mom!” Laughing, I went on the hunt for my mom. We giggled as we went to the check-out stand. Mom was stressed to the max about time until we got back to the bus stop, driving me crazy.

We would got outside, I grabbed as many bags as I could so mom didn’t have to carry too much. At the bus stop, I light up a smoke. She grabbed the socks and handed them to the group. They were so happy. Saying, “thank you” over and over. It put a huge smile on my mom’s face which of course put a smile on mine.

The bus came around the corner and I grabbed the bags and got on the bus. Then the group of homeless got on the bus, which never happened before. At the light the next thing we knew, the guy with the package of socks held them up and asked, “Who needs new socks?”

Ma and I just looked at each other and smiled. That is until the homeless started taking off their shoes and socks to put on new socks, leaving the others where they fell. At the next stop, the group got off the bus leaving their old socks behind.

This time, when I looked at my mom with my nose under my shirt, I said, “This is your fault.” Laughing because she was mad as hell! The smell of the socks never ended until we got to our stop and finally was able to escape to clean air. The bus driver and my mom are friends, so Ma said, “Sorry.” As she left.

The driver shook her head and smiled before pulling away. I picked up the bags and started walking to the trailer, laughing so hard I had to pe. Ma smiled and told me to “Fuck off.” Well shoot dang, that went from sugar to shit. | BV

The backyard where my childhood soliloquies were permitted to play was a manicured grass and garden and the neighboring farm field. At its center, the grass harbors an aluminum flagpole supporting an American flag that remains lit through the night. It is sheltered by a red single-story barn, pump house, and cottage that opens to an eastern view. The foundation corner-stoned with river rock embraces raised garden beds of strawberries and sunflowers, cap-stoned by the acres of the “Iron Horse” supporting the green ocean waves that rise, fall and peak with Mount Hood.

I sit in the grass next to the flagpole and my mind opens to songs being sung. Soft wind nourishes everything it touches; crisp air whistles in my ears. The gentle unraveling of the flag, high on its mast allows the breeze to influence its dance. Heavy and somber, the flag slowly reveales the colors as if she too feels the weight of sacrifice. Pronouncing the silent dance, she taps against her mast, an unmistakable ding. Birds in conversation chirp their love, joy, and quarrels lost in a world all their own. Wings flap in pursuit of play. Donkeys stamp the dirt with their front hooves checking the safety of each step. Their lips slap together forming a pressured heavy sign that expresses an arduous life. The grass whooshes and as it is crunched and separated by the dogs laying near me — anticipating the release that is to come. I roll on my back in the cool grass, the whole of these expressions become the same song.

Each moment different than the last, but unbeknownst to me, for each moment was let go as it passed. My breath slow and eyes open to depths of blue above.

Perspective.

Worldly life fades from awareness and there is just this. Opening to experience without limitations, the dogs are first to communion as I touch their souls, akin to the breeze upon the flag. The breath stills. Lungs no longer coerce the air; the air simply flows through them.

Perspective.

Seeing ceases being action of the eyes. The eyes merely a lens seen through and seeing blooming luminous from within. Walls remaining become few. I lay the heart of my soul, in offering, upon the center of the earth, just as I lay back in the grass, and the earth cradles it. Hands reach for space to rest them upon the soul of the universe. Souls upon souls meet in recognition and embrace.

The whole of time existing in one moment. The full measure of space within reach. Looking upon the universe, universe loos upon awareness. Complete.

Then, I let it all go.

Release. | MA

A year ago today, I wrote about poet Andrea Gibson’s essay the “Hardest Winter of My Life.” I couldn’t get the phrase “being inside the question together” out of my head and I still can’t. The words continue to circle me every time I wade into the murky waters of wonder. It can feel lonely to bump up against the edges of a question. I need the grist of another person’s thought process to open the gates.

I often throw an idea — in the form of a bold, declarative statement — out to Danny. As we discuss, I imagine that we are nibbling away at the edges of this question in the form of statement until the sentence has become either a carcass or it is reborn as a creature with appendages that reach to the floor. He’s a good sport about mucking about in the questions, looking for purchase while I sputter away. And in fact, after I read the opening line of this post to him, I could hear his flying fingers on the keyboard composing a response for me:

Some of us have no such dilemma. The phrase simply washes over us like a fresh mountain stream — long enough to feel and be refreshed by new thought and letting it carry itself away to find its level. In our writing groups, we do 5-minute free writes. Inevitably one or two people in our group, tells us before reading that they didn’t get it right or went a different direction from the start and ask forgiveness. Everyone approaches these prompts so differently. It keeps conversations lively and the thoughts from each other’s work often lead us far afield from the original idea. We enjoy the diversity of ideas which further bonds our writing groups.

I would add that being in the question together connects us to a well spring. The free write prompt, the discussion, the call and response of our conversations — these are the containers that help us shape the way we envision the world and our place in it. From this raw material we construct new work.

Michael Wise responded to that question together in this way;
There are things I have experienced
that seek not the light of day,
Not having to worry about hiding from the question
Together,
Being seen just as you are …

Amir’Whadi Hassan wrote this response to Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings:
But there’s a bird that knows only the narrowest views, slants
of steel is all he sees through. Wings clipped from
rage, feet strapped and encaged.

Luis Rodriguez responded to Andrea Gibson’s Longest Winter:
The winter was cold but I must let it pass in my mind, for we are what we think. We find what we seek, and we live in the season in which we choose to sit.

From Michael Stepina:
The simple is viewed as a fool by the intellectual.
The intellectual is ambitious and tries to reap benefit off the back of the simple.

Becoming by Ian Lohrman:
An undulating living edifice
of its own organic geometry
brimming with nascent awareness
of the inevitability of becoming

R. Miranda’s I Have Spoken:
I dare not give them life
through oral words or phrase,
So in the shadows of my mind
is where they opt to stay

Stressla Lynn Johnson brings us home:
What are these murky pools
that seem to sit behind my mind’s eyes,
shallow water away from the shores of my illusion,
weight-down in the darkest depths of aloneness;

Ah, the aloneness. To stand alone in an idea feels like defending a fortress. How do we rebuild those stances to find common ground, to maintain partnership, unity? How do we ensure that our ideas hold enough veracity that they are worthy of our life’s energy? Take this as your invitation to stand in these questions with us. | TDS

Another season is upon us every day and with every sunrise is the opportunity to look for signs of life, love and light, to bloodhound. The winter was cold but I must let it pass in my mind, for we are what we think. We find what we seek, and we live in the season in which we choose to sit.

My presence matters. Everywhere I am, I plant seeds through word and action that affects someone’s mood, someone’s day or many people through generations. The vibration I emit sends an energy, good or bad to everyone I encounter and any place I go. My presence and the energy I emit are all I have to contribute to life and the only way to live out my purpose. | LR

Being inside the question together,
The question of life,
Love,
And each other,
Finding the one to be yourself,
Authentic,
Not having to worry about hiding from the question
Together,
Being seen just as you are,
Living in the moment,
For the moment,
Before it passes you by,
Laying in each other’s arms with no question,
Letting time pass by. | MW

1
Ey3 am the spirit of the Black Aquarians.
M’Ey3 children are Metal, Fire, Earth, Water, and Air.
Ey3 am center of all.
From atom to the eve of creations.
To the birth of all that is life and death.
Ey3 Am.
3WE are.
One.

2
Two share this plain of existence.
One, simple filled with awe and wonder.
Joyfully bliss in the moments that it inherits.
The second, intellectual, filled with knowledge and expectation.
Discontent in its present. It’s eye always on the horizon of tomorrow.
The simple is viewed as a fool by the intellectual.
The intellectual is ambitious and tries to reap benefit off the back of the simple.
The fools grows into its stride of steps as it lives life.
The ambitious grows into its death as it waits for tomorrow.
The fool, unbeknownst to the intellectual, has the power to
become anything it discovers and swishes to explore in study.
The ambitious, set in its way, becomes expert or master in its Craft.
Only to peak, then slowly degrade.
Joyful bliss.
Blinding ambition.
Two share this plain. | MS

There are things I have experienced
that seek not the light of day,
things that are shameful,
life defining,
mournful in the saddest way.

I dare not give them life
through oral words or phrase,
So in the shadows of my mind
is where they opt to stay,
well-hidden until the moment’s dead!

Some things are better left unsaid. | RM

“Remember yourself, always and everywhere.”
- G. I. Gurdieff

Time’s radial root awakens
after seven oaken ages slumbered
inside an intricate wickerworks
wove in sticks and leaves and one

An undulating living edifice
of its own organic geometry
brimming with nascent awareness
of the inevitability of becoming

Becoming
birdsongs hung on mountain air
coaxed from deep purple hollows

Becoming
skyworld’s feathered fantasy
echoed In the wild vegetal eye

Becoming
a being in freeform and flower
for each bird to rest a wing

Becoming
absorbed in subtle bodies
of clear whispered light

Cutting
riverine paths of give and take
washed by the star
of wisdom’s luminous mirror

Winnowing
the fertile harvest
of collective mindstuff
chewed into the nourishing bolus of acceptance

Becoming
a glutinous, many-splendored corpus
borne from the depths of subconscious libraries
remembered, swallowed and forgotten. | IL

A response to Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”

The free bird glides high on the currents of the wind.
Into a vastness that seems without end, wings slicing through
the rays of the sun, as he claims the sky as his own.

But there’s a bird that knows only the narrowest views, slants
of steel is all he sees through. Wings clipped from
rage, feet strapped and encaged. To his anger, he has
become enslaved. Yet, his voice can’t be tamed, so he
opens his mouth to sing.

The caged bird sings of life’s ills, things unknown yet yearned
for still. His song falls on deaf ears, a song of freedom
that no one hears.

The free bird envisions the next breeze, to soar upon
with ease, high above the trees. He has everything he
needs.

But the caged bird stands in a graveyard of murdered
dreams, haunted by things never seen, as the from
the shadows scream shattering his thoughts of being
free so he opens his mouth to sing.

To sing of life’s ills, unknown yet yearned for still.
His song falls on deaf ears, a song of freedom
that no on hears. | AH

What are these murky pools
that seem to sit behind my mind’s eyes,
shallow water away from the shores of my illusion,
weighed down in the darkest depths of aloneness;
created illusion or instilled delusion,
rising from the darkness of my imagination
or moving towards the shore
as the shallows become deeper and
still.

What are these murky pools that I seem to wade in,
in increments of time and space.

Stop me before I stop loving what I do.

Hold before I forget the warmth of your embrace.

Remove me from this moment before I become lost in time
and drown in the murky pools of stillness. | SLJ