award-winning writer & performing artist in Lingit Aani, Juneau, Alaska
award-winning writer & performing artist in Lingit Aani, Juneau, Alaska
Lively @ 2021 Template Sell
The first five minutes in the Behemoth weren’t good. On first smell I could tell something wasn’t right. Then something in the truck caused my hyper sensitive lungs to react, and suddenly I needed my inhaler. On our first corner we climbed a small hill, and our flatbed Chevy Cheyenne work truck slowly putted up […]
First time in the Behemoth, an old asphalt paving flat-bed truck that was completely undriveable just two weeks ago, road tripping with a camper on the Golden circle from Skagway, Alaska, to Whitehorse, Canada, and ending up in Haines for the SE Alaska State Fair. Maneuvering at top speeds of 25 mph through windy, winding, […]
Breeze exhales in your left ear. Inhale sea spray. Hot sun consumes the thick jungle and complexions, varnishing the lucky ones until they sparkle. Your body, boneless, slithers into a hammock. Shadows of palm fronds dance over bare legs, chased by sunbeams. Toenails resemble pink shells in the sand. Ocean waves wash through your lungs, salty. […]
Wildfires wrapped me in their hazy cocoon yesterday.Muffled all sounds and thoughts like a cold,Like the eerie quiet of underwater. Orange sun transformed my living room into a glass of Tang. A parliament of eagles vied for salmon guts on the beach, chasing off the ravens over daisies and seaweed. Quarreling ravens forced out a […]
Many strange things occurred in that house. First, the toy radio spoke to me, although it was missing batteries and a plug-in. Then came the ghosts. The crashes woke me up initially. Loud, booming sounds, like a jet overhead, except it roared in spurts. Is it thunder? It never thundered or lightning’d in the rainforest of […]
“Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” — Mathew 25:40 Last May, when the Trump administration starting separating children from their parents and housing them in hieleras (ice boxes) and cages, under deplorable conditions with no clear intention or process for reuniting them […]
Air dense with trees and pollen, I couldn’t get a breath in. Sent to live in an oxygen tent at age seven. Short breaths Left their autograph in my health, And I am left with gratitude That I can exhale chatter And inhale what really matters. One morning my jaw couldn’t move Because I could […]
June lupine bloomsCocoon Juneau in huesOf lavender and blue,Cormorant and loon attune To swoon of spring —None are immune.Whispers rise and fallSoft like balloonsUnder the loom of moon In full bloom.Soon strewn throughout, lupine seeds commune,Leaving clues to ruminateOn what once grew Under lover’s rune. Photo by Jessie Herman Haywood
Seven years ago they exchanged vows where salty ocean muddles river, river addles ocean. The black magnetic sand lures from all ends of the earth, as it did for one girl with skin the color of seashells. After twenty years of coursing eddies south through lush and concrete jungles, “the end is called back to the beginning,” – shukalxs […]
