 I have two announcements that might be of interest to you, but I have two announcements that might be of interest to you. First of all, if you're like Shakespeare, you know that he has a big birthday coming up. So April 9th, the Bowdoin Public Library and the Library Foundation is sponsoring two free Shakespeare events, one on the 9th and one on the 23rd of April. And the 9th is going to be Will Shakespeare and Friends, songs and sonnets of English Renaissance. It's going to be right here. Piano will be involved. The second one is April 23rd. I'm sorry, they're both 6.30 to 8.30 p.m., so that's your time. The second one is April 23rd, and that is going to be much to do about something, readings from Shakespeare's comedies. So what's going to happen in that one is lunch was just get together and do different scenes from Shakespeare's comedies, and we just never know what will happen, because some of us are not that good at doing this. I'm really pointing myself. So those are two of the announcements. And I have another announcement. Flash Fiction and Poetry Slam, Tuesday, April 15th. So when you get your taxes in, you can come down and sort of moan about it. At Wild Joe's Coffee House, 5 to 7 p.m., open mic readings of original writings, poetry, flash fiction, 1,000 words, or other writings, five minutes per person. It's a little bit more generous than you get, isn't it? Open to everyone. So those are two of the administrative things. And then we have a little bit of a fun thing for you, I hope, which is a couple of door prizes. So I'm just going to, I'm looking at you to call a name. I'm going to get the slide out of this one. Thank you. Chris, do you want any? Please. You just want something. Thank you all for coming back and staying with us for the next half. We have, I don't know how many I can't count that well when I'm standing in front of people, but we have events where people, John Heilman, Hank Hielman, Heilman. This poem reflects an experience I had when I was working in a hospital drug and alcohol rehab club weekend. Once upon a Monday, an artistic young man of 16 years who did excellent paintings and excellent crank, coke, bourbon and girls told me of this weekend when he did crank, coke, bourbon and girls. I had to admit to just a twinge of jealousy having spent my weekend doing laundry on kids. Until Wednesday, when the artistic young man did himself in with a bed sheet, much like the ones I will wash again this weekend and he will never heal. This poem is entitled, The Two of Us. She gives me that sly look, eyebrows lowered, eyes like slithered almond. The glint of brightness as her head caught to the side, her gaze steady upon me. Yes, I am her mother. And I have said yet again one of my less than profound string of words. How we laugh at each other's foibles. The gentle humor that knows way more than most would ever choose to reveal the knowledge that can wound or heal. Held in gentle safety, we share not only life blood, but temperament and passion. Conversations, ideas, dreams, flow like the sometimes quite steep stream or the powerful river. Our journeys, times and moods twist and turn as we wrap our minds and hearts on all we encounter. Each traveling separately, yet still together. Spirits entwined, wishing each other the best. We replenish ourselves knowing that we share a gentle honesty, a knowing ear, a history and a love. Though we do not grasp the spirit nor know the ways that grew on us, we trust in a deep flow and a connection among and within all. The sharp wisdom of my daughter so insightful, so free, affirming and challenging. Oh, where comes that energy? She looks at me, her lips in a half smile, eyes narrowed with humor. Where did you get that idea? We laugh at my foibles, her sharp wisdom, the freedom to be honest. What's called wind chimes? A baby by the window, wind chimes hang above. A warm summer sun with a refreshing breeze makes a wind chime sing. The beautiful sound soothes the baby to sleep. Will she remember this? I know I will. A mommy by the window, wind chimes up above. Soothes the mommy to sleep to dream of what her baby will become. Losing it in a quinoa B, the rush song on the signals album, probably know what it's about. Many years ago, her gray hair arrived, her memory fading years after that. Small increments like eroding mountains or the movement of sand dunes across the desert. A mixed up sentence or date where her grandson didn't have a soccer game or her son a lunch date with his mother. She laughed it off at first. You played along. Not wanting to cause embarrassment. Alone in her house, her dog the only companion died at her feet, blood coming out of its nose from the tumor that had it. Then doctors visits followed, Subaru keys taken away, family conferences. Power of attorney forms completed. Her house sold, her things divided. No more sleepovers at grandma's. Her son cries, her daughter fights. The last wishes to see her sisters. No names now, just over there and down there for locations. For there's no getting back to embarrassment or living alone or driving to town, just the indignity of losing it. I wrote this poem because it occurred to me that when people leave your world you really don't know where they went. Because they were so vital when they were alive and they were so important in their lives. So when they're gone it's like the Spain's will, where are they? And so this is the poem I wrote essentially for my sister. And yet in some ways when people leave our sphere we wonder where are they? I suppose because we miss them. This is called Where Camilla Lives. I visit you now in your new home, a ranch-style house in Tortangels, and the fog rolls in obscuring the mountains from your kitchen window. Do you miss the old manse of Harvard Avenue I ask? The freeway like an ocean roar, the creaking stairs, the many rooms whispering melancholy syllables of forgetfulness. You interrupt in the excitement of discovery. See the mountain now? The sun brings the fog away. It's one of my treats I look forward to every day. The fireplace though, I say on Harvard we used to bake apples there for a simple supper. Eat potatoes I had brought from my yard and the cookies you bake building the rival of me, your youngest sister. I feel a bit of a chill, don't you? A long fire would be nice. I build a fire. I bring you a mud of hot chocolate. My dear, you say, how I would miss your visits better me before you. And here you are transformed again from the house on Harvard Avenue from the ranch style house in Port Angeles to some place in my head where I return again and again it was you before me. And those last letters you sent, all the answers did you know? Waiting at four o'clock in the morning to sound this dark. I stare. In time the curtain edges will grow light till then I see what's really always there unresting death a whole day in your now making all thought impossible but how and where and when I shall myself die air interrogation yet the dread of dying and of being dead flashes afresh to hold and horrify the mind blanks at the glare out in remorse good not done, the light not given time torn off unused more wretchedly because then only life can take so long to climb clear of its wrong beginnings and may never but at the total emptiness forever the sure extinction that we travel to and shall be lost and always not to be here not to be anywhere and soon nothing more terrible nothing more true this is a special way of being afraid no trick dispel religion used to try that vast moth-eaten musical brocade created to pretend we never die and specious stuff that says no rational being can fear anything it will not feel not seen this is what we fear no sight no sound no touch or taste or smell nothing to think with nothing to love or link with the anesthetic from which none come around and so it stays just on the edge of vision a small unfocused blur a standing chill that slows each and pulls down to indecision most things may never happen this one will and realization of it rages out in furnace fear when we are caught without people or drink courage is no good it means not scaring others being brave lets no one off the grave death is no different whined at than withstood slowly like strengthens in the room takes shape stands plain as a wardrobe what we know have always known know that we can't escape yet can it accept one sight will have to go meanwhile telephones crouched getting ready to ring in locked up offices and all the uncaring intricate rented world begins to rouse the sky is white as clay with no sun work has to be done postmen like doctors go from house to house to waltz stevens be on the flink told you at this time last week the spark still glows i've been reading stevens restatement of romance look at it before progressing the night knows nothing of the chance of night it is what it is as i am what i am and in perceiving this i best perceive myself it is for statements such as this that stevens is my poet it is not that i agree with his sense i do but that he is reaching for the sense his sense if you wish yet it is to me to you he is calling beyond the casual solitudes marking the page was a letter from you only we too may interchange each in each other with what each has to give only we too are one why do i write this now merely to love you isn't that it dark pacific words an infinite incantation of ourselves the true reconcilings i read your letters with joy and happiness and gratitude i mourn our separateness in the pale light but the true light dispels the darkness of my night we are in the den in the warmth of love beyond the fling of the dull asses hoof in the existence reaching memories searching for what was and what could be again again words are there too pointing, glaring, calling attention evades dance around words trying, straining to be what was what is feeling what was felt knowing what was there across the ephemeral internal fog it's there right over there screaming remembering unseen at its moment unbathomable depths sway beneath my feet in the center of the awesome taking step after step into uncertainty with no land in sight rolling, swirling towering waves block out the spirits blue sky momentarily salty humidity fills my lungs but i don't joke roaring, howling they're the only sounds i'm buoyant not polander protected electric power is all around me this is called god is near every day is beautiful here no matter what the weather god blesses us with flowers tulips, roses and heather with friends and family all about these are blessings about which we could shout thank god for our senses of sea, field and here wherever we are we know he is near look at tiny snowflakes on the porch rail enjoy every bird from head to tail drink in the aroma of fresh apple pie wonder at stars up in the dark sky listen to the music of a babbling brook there's awesome discoveries each place we look we know that god loves us he sent his son to die on a cross the only one love and obey him follow his word the most important things man ever heard if we do in the sweet by and by we'll meet him in heaven up in the sky willa jean spiel looking with intentions of reading something else but this one seems apt because i wrote this a week ago i have an appreciation for people like you all don't think this came easy genesis has done us wrong i say this because genesis in all of its glory has made creation seem a simple act six days, six nights but it's not the simplicity that necessarily bothers me god sent humans work at a different pace it's the lack of appreciation the writers of this sacred text it seems we're eager to set the stage for humanity choosing foolishly to forgo elucidation about the creative process behind an entire planet as a child reading this i then assumed divine creation was without struggle in fact i never even gave the feet the second thought but have you ever tried to create something have you ever spent hours and days laboring over the simplest sentence moving a comma from one space to the next and then back again or how about picking out a guitar with reverence but never getting the melody just quite right have you ever tried to create something in your own image forged through the unavoidable pain of growing up and enduring the hardships of simply being alive don't think this comes easy have you ever written a fictional character as a representation of yourself or the people you know have you ever ran a brush as containing the experience of both hand and heart containing a weight so heavy it's the only thing that can set you free have you ever subjected yourself to certain misery for the sake of one photograph that depicts all the truth a piece of fruit was once rumored to hold don't think this comes easy have you ever made something and then thrown it away finding only flaws and self doubt in your efforts or maybe you just kept it locked away in a drawer in your bed or in your bed or possibly in the depths of your mind have you ever labored in the hope of putting purpose into something else might finally give you purpose in yourself and guess what don't think this comes easy have you ever created something and shared it have you ever subjected yourself to the scrutiny and embarrassment of people's callousness or criticism or maybe the harshest of them all in difference the way you scream silently through an act through an act in practice you just want some of the whole whether with their eyes or their words or maybe even a hand or have you dared to share and then receive praise and admiration or love this too can be just as difficult to accept have you ever felt how quickly a creation can get away from you growing and blossoming becoming very much beyond your own don't think this comes easy but because we are taught it is easy from most like Genesis we sit back with spiritual critics picking and choosing what we want to believe and trust acting as connoisseurs of an art we don't understand and can't comprehend but the thing is you don't have to believe it just appreciate it because this doesn't come easy don't for a single second think the blueprint to this world came easy because the blood and bone was done with ease because even the best of our art is struggle the ones born with sickening natural talent the ones fused with intrinsic vision and insight the ones that could take that could make something in 6 days and rest on the 7th don't you dare think this came easy because I once did in such a folly belittles every river and stream, lake and ocean mountain and fragile ecosystem you find yourselves crossing there's a reason all the world's wisdom was embedded in the trees we climb and the food we eat it's in us too because a creator can't be separated from his creation your body was created with the same grit as our paint our piano strings infused with the divine gift of breath and the music of memory look at yourself all those flaws and blemishes that only you and the creator know about don't think this was easy don't think this came easy and don't doubt that you are loved there's too much pride in you and you and you someone's creation like all other creations to everything otherwise this is for joe and renda and hyen I wrote it for me and for you and it's a narrative poem about the way of accolade which is part of the way of words which is the power of words to regenerate spirit, joy and strength to reclaim words for the soul I am feeling shining rainbow tinged suffusive joy and you are you feeling that you can move in any direction write your own story take wing and enter worlds of possibility for the making say the sunshine that weaves through your being is flowing out into everything that you may let it be told everything you touch nourishes under your hand and in your presence see the unfolding mysteries of beauty and secrets defined only by the ones who have seen inside the form and blessed broken rock and praised out deep down form until it glowed until an inner light forms the geometry of a rose and their deepest secret comes out to play and astound in delight but only because you named it right when you say beauty value and work you breathe I believe, I believe, I believe I believe in the divine in you they rise in the serene still air of the sacred with a burning essence of truth as incense burning true demands release and floats the shapes of symbols only lovers understand as the mothering mist gives birth to the majestic redness towering trees that cannot live without the empowerment from the mist so your breath as loving airs affirmations and decrees processioning forth to build breath upon breath the magnificent tree of life that lies cruel in the littlest and the least as we all are in our time in the cosmic age of opportunity in the womb of the cosmos as we are clutching the breast of mother birth the unknown claims us she the mother of mystery says you claim it say the undreamed belongs to me the god free claimed from the diamond heart of the mother the magnificent