Flock

Rare image of flock of camera-shy, noble, high-quality, highly-private, reserved, featherless Edlows, including the wildlife-inspired poet 

Poet with Emperor

I'd say "Jump to It" but I'm in mid-air already

Super Indian No. 2, 1971,  Fritz Scholder

Summer, mid-July. What? What happened to May, a month I tend to grieve because my father died during it, on a Friday, on a 13th of May, so many years ago now that I rarely dream of him even. May. I think I'll always want you to pass quickly. You broke my young woman's heart.
What happened to June? I remember some wonderful readings I was lucky to have been asked to give. Where was I? Summer, look! August is what my mother would call "a stone's throw" away. Lately my mother's "borrowed" phrases are returning to me like monarch butterflies.
I've always worked best with checklists. Checklists are my friend.
1.  Read, review and write a blurb for the chapbook by a simply amazing poet who recently won this past year's PSA award for the book. The first three poems have already robbed my heart. If I'm not mistaken, the chap will be published later this fall 2016 by a marvelous independent press.
2.  Thank goodness my poetry course outlines and class descriptions are finished--and delivered--for my new teaching position with the Phoenix Center for the Arts. I'll be teaching poetry classes come Spring 2017. If you are in the Phoenix metro area and would like to sign up for one of the poetry classes I'm offering, please contact the Center to register!
3.  I am the judge for the Poetry Contest for the Arizona Authors' Association this year, and the quite LARGE packet arrived last week. This will be a kinetic and interesting process. All due by the end of August.
4.  Sweet August. When I lovingly weave together my second full-length poetry collection, and hope to have it move mountains and stand the test of time. Yes, that's all I ask.
5.  Goodbye stove. Goodbye vacuum cleaner. Goodbye ironing board. Hello semi-fast, semi-healthy food.  Hello hardly shaving my legs but twice a week. Hello music coming from my house at full blast here at the end of the cul-de-sac. Hello, rain? Sorry, I don't even have the time to know if you happen at this point. Hello, my trinity...M, A, T. If not for you, I would feel adrift. Hello over-considerate, over-thoughtful, over-wonderful "But the Gentleman to my Right." Don't tell him I call him an angel. He doesn't even know what blogs are. Alright, he knows, but he doesn't care, he doesn't care what blogs are. That's how he rolls.

I have a date with this beautiful gal and more than a handful of horns for a few last poems, and nothing, but nothing, is going to stop me now~

Billie, who doesn't care what blogs are either