by Gordon Prickett
From water's edge I see a bass jump.
Somewhere along the bank a mallard calls.
Fog rises in the shallows.
Across the lake mist turns rose and blue.
Straight out from shore a loon surfaces,
calls like a bugler and dives.
Again on the surface he laughs over and over.
Fish splash near shore as the sun barely rises
above trees to color the far shore green.
Gordon Prickett August 1996
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Superior Haiku by Gordon Prickett
In Mid April I found myself in Duluth at the Lift Bridge Canal with a break between the Annual Mining Symposium and its closing banquet at the posh Kitchigami Club on Superior Street. The sky was clear. The lake the deepest blue. Even with water temperature at freezing, the lake walk was enjoyable. No camera, but I found a pencil.
SUPERIOR HAIKU
lift bridge canal ice
floating melting in the sun
sparkling white mid April
Duluth clear blue sky
natives run walk sit and smile
gulls announce their day
Now to return to Aitkin County, where lake ice is rapidly melting, and nearby loons are watching for their waterways.
SUPERIOR HAIKU
lift bridge canal ice
floating melting in the sun
sparkling white mid April
Duluth clear blue sky
natives run walk sit and smile
gulls announce their day
Now to return to Aitkin County, where lake ice is rapidly melting, and nearby loons are watching for their waterways.
Monday, March 23, 2009
MORE RAIN
Gordon Prickett July 1993
At least in Nordland Township this morning - where we have a partial washout on the gravel road to our place. As I drove around it and viewed some of the culverts that are full and flowing, I recalled another time and place when the waters kept rising.
It was the summer of 1993 in St. Louis. The confluence of the Illinois, the Missouri, and the Mississippi Rivers. My employer was the electric utility, and we had serious difficulty generating and transmitting electric power in that 500-year flood.
MORE RAIN
Rain pelts a sodden earth.
Creeks rise and rush to swollen streams.
Streams spill over banks, rivers rise relentlessly.
Thunder booms while lightning’s eerie glow flashes.
Week after week we bear witness,
joined by president, governor, and mayors.
Those who lived at the edge of water
have fled its awful force.
Builders who made deals in river frontage
leave buyers washed out.
We see earth’s continuing creation
this soggy summer of 1993.
Across the Midwest seams of rock
once were formed with transported soil and sand.
Rain and flood reshaped dry land.
Today battered people pray - to stop the rain
and for strength through the storm.
Gordon Prickett July 1993
At least in Nordland Township this morning - where we have a partial washout on the gravel road to our place. As I drove around it and viewed some of the culverts that are full and flowing, I recalled another time and place when the waters kept rising.
It was the summer of 1993 in St. Louis. The confluence of the Illinois, the Missouri, and the Mississippi Rivers. My employer was the electric utility, and we had serious difficulty generating and transmitting electric power in that 500-year flood.
MORE RAIN
Rain pelts a sodden earth.
Creeks rise and rush to swollen streams.
Streams spill over banks, rivers rise relentlessly.
Thunder booms while lightning’s eerie glow flashes.
Week after week we bear witness,
joined by president, governor, and mayors.
Those who lived at the edge of water
have fled its awful force.
Builders who made deals in river frontage
leave buyers washed out.
We see earth’s continuing creation
this soggy summer of 1993.
Across the Midwest seams of rock
once were formed with transported soil and sand.
Rain and flood reshaped dry land.
Today battered people pray - to stop the rain
and for strength through the storm.
Gordon Prickett July 1993
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Market Crash 2008 by Gordon Prickett
MARKET CRASH 2008
"Credit default swap" - what's in a name?
Is it a loan or insurance, for stocks or bonds?
Does it signal risk or greed?
Will it be a slam dunk, a piece-of-cake?
The more words needed to explain it,
the murkier, the shakier, the weirder it is.
We are told the creators of credit default swaps put together
"securitized" sub-prime mortgage loans and insurance.
Their bosses understood little about this product,
but signed off anyway and cashed in.
Now, fellow victims, we all know the swindle that was.
We have our own names for this collapse -
bleeping deleted expletives.
"Credit default swap" - what's in a name?
Is it a loan or insurance, for stocks or bonds?
Does it signal risk or greed?
Will it be a slam dunk, a piece-of-cake?
The more words needed to explain it,
the murkier, the shakier, the weirder it is.
We are told the creators of credit default swaps put together
"securitized" sub-prime mortgage loans and insurance.
Their bosses understood little about this product,
but signed off anyway and cashed in.
Now, fellow victims, we all know the swindle that was.
We have our own names for this collapse -
bleeping deleted expletives.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
A Splash
by Gordon Prickett
(gordmett@emily.net) of Heartland Poets
Loud splash at water’s edge
where a V appears
A swimming beaver leaves our shore
cutting season for beaver families
With trees falling around the lake
we bring in a trapper
who takes five of these busy beavers
and collects their pelts.
It’s for the good of the lakeshore
that we limit the beaver
There is a season on beaver and bear
hunters harvest the browsing deer
But when the chainsaws and dozers,
cement trucks and nailing guns arrive
we have no season on people up here.
a splash and a roar and the shore is changed.
November 2005
(gordmett@emily.net) of Heartland Poets
Loud splash at water’s edge
where a V appears
A swimming beaver leaves our shore
cutting season for beaver families
With trees falling around the lake
we bring in a trapper
who takes five of these busy beavers
and collects their pelts.
It’s for the good of the lakeshore
that we limit the beaver
There is a season on beaver and bear
hunters harvest the browsing deer
But when the chainsaws and dozers,
cement trucks and nailing guns arrive
we have no season on people up here.
a splash and a roar and the shore is changed.
November 2005
Friday, January 30, 2009
Universal Life
by Katie Carter of Bemidji
The universe spirals on. . .
feeding on itself, on moons and meteorites, on stars,
sun, and satellites, on vapors and Venus,
people,
Pluto, and
the planets.
Twelve billion feet
connecting with earth,
each cell radiating energy of
passions,
fears,
hopes . . .
Blending, swirling, suffusing
becoming one another.
Every one,
everyone
morphs
into
the
all.
Waves
of wisdom
wafting
with
waves
of why.
breaths and vibrations of humanness
and taking others in:
Voltaic vapors, the bi-products of lives, of babies and boys
and Saturns rings and kangaroos. . .
Mars and grandmas and dads and thieves and horses
waterfalls and moms and siblings and crickets. . .
foes and visionaries and moonlight. . .
Dogs and ducks and giggling school kids and girls gone mad and
geniuses and saints and volcanoes and floods and
legends and
all that has been.
Can you feel me Pluto?
It’s me, a minuscule morsel of life,
I dwell on the planet earth.
Can you feel me Pluto?
I’m sending you a secret signal and
I think I feel your pull.
The universe spirals on. . .
feeding on itself, on moons and meteorites, on stars,
sun, and satellites, on vapors and Venus,
people,
Pluto, and
the planets.
Twelve billion feet
connecting with earth,
each cell radiating energy of
passions,
fears,
hopes . . .
Blending, swirling, suffusing
becoming one another.
Every one,
everyone
morphs
into
the
all.
Waves
of wisdom
wafting
with
waves
of why.
breaths and vibrations of humanness
and taking others in:
Voltaic vapors, the bi-products of lives, of babies and boys
and Saturns rings and kangaroos. . .
Mars and grandmas and dads and thieves and horses
waterfalls and moms and siblings and crickets. . .
foes and visionaries and moonlight. . .
Dogs and ducks and giggling school kids and girls gone mad and
geniuses and saints and volcanoes and floods and
legends and
all that has been.
Can you feel me Pluto?
It’s me, a minuscule morsel of life,
I dwell on the planet earth.
Can you feel me Pluto?
I’m sending you a secret signal and
I think I feel your pull.
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