In a time when technology has fallen away, Islanders are rediscovering the ways of the forest. In a frenzy of excitement and discovery, two children, Rose Hip and Snowberry, have yanked quantities of moss and licorice fern from a tree. They turn to head home, only to stop short in surprise! In front of them…
Literary
Two Poems
It’s technically winter, but love and spring are in the air. These poems are both about thresholds. I am not dreaming— yet I am elsewhere maybe with the late moon outside this cold window— clumps of oatmeal cloud move slowly west against the tide— a pulse of cotton reflects the feather’d candy ring that surrounds…
Literary
I Have Yet to See
too many starstheir vastness pricksmy skin with wonderment Perhaps in another lifeI will be an astronomerand know their namesor perhaps an astronautwho will land on the moon I will eat from her extraordinarylightness then becomea star hanging inthe limitless sky.
Children, Literary
Rose Hip and Snowberry – Part 2
This is a continuation of the story started in the December issue of The Vashon Loop. In a time when technology falls away, the folk of an Island find themselves returning to the ways of the forest. Two children, Rose Hip and Snowberry, explore their new world. This is one of their adventures. Rose Hip…
Literary
An Old Take on the Emperor’s New Clothes
If you blended Beatrix Potter with Stephen King, you might come close to Hans Christian Andersen. All three writers started life with severely limited opportunities. All three overcame those challenges through hard work, grit, and the necessary dashes of chutzpah and luck. And, all three focus (in their own, unique way) on the tough realities…
Literary
The Endless Light of Life
If modern scientists are to be believed, when the star we orbit starts to die, it will expand into a red giant, becoming so large that it engulfs Mercury and Venus, and possibly the Earth as well. Until then, life will endure on our planet, and the vast majority of that life will be non-humanoid….
Literary
Rain Music
The melodies of tree rain are magical from the dull, droning Chinese water torture tunes to the scintillating syncopation of penthouse jazz and back street blues to the jaunty Harlem tap dance or the trotting gait of a Gaelic hornpipe The rain dances of the great trees are pure, sublime magic
Children, Literary
Rose Hip and Snowberry – Part 1
Once upon a time, the world changes. On an Island like this one, forest and mist reclaim the land, technology falls away, and certain names disappear. Calling out to her two children to come home, a mother puzzles in mid-holler as she forgets their names. Noticing the two bushes on either side of the front…
Children, Literary
Finn and The Salmon Of Wisdom
A retelling of an Irish mythIllustration above by Jane Valencia Here on Vashon Island, now is the time that the salmon return home after long years in the ocean. Up streams and rivers they swim and leap and lunge, taking in deep scents of the waters along the way, smells that reach into their beginnings…
Literary
Hard History = Powerful Stories
By March Twisdale Written roughly 100 years ago, Upton Sinclair’s novel, “The Jungle,” captures the breadth of human behavior, both then and now. There is an interesting fact about fictional stories. No matter how far the author’s imagination strays from what is considered real or mundane, the fundamental basis of their work, the world, the…