WINTER 2021

The photo brings you our view of The Olympic Mountains as seen from our home in Union, WA above Hood Canal.  For a few weeks several Orca whales have been spotted here in our part of the Canal.  We are at the end called Big Bend, where the Canal turns East.  We saw the Orcas clearly with binoculars.  They chase the salmon swimming into streams through flood waters.  We go frequently to Twanoh State Park, one place they come to spawn and lay eggs.  Many die and are eaten by the seagulls.  The continual rain and monsoon conditions this year makes the salmon journey slightly easier.   Sea lions barked for days when the whales came.  We located one group on a swimming raft not far from us.  Whales eat seals and salmon.

     This week, snow fell behind the kitchen window as I set up my tiny Christmas village.

     During the Pandemic, I have written a collection of poems about living by water.  A few are included in this blog.

     Thanks to all who read my BLOG.  I send warm wishes for a holiday filled with love and a bright new year.  Rich and I are grateful for one another in these times.  Rich recently welcomed his 10th great grandchild born to his granddaughter Jessica Lampe and her husband Brian Walker.

 WATER POEMS BY SUSAN GLENN LAMPE

BIRD SKITTER OVER WATER

Bird skitter mesmerizes me.

How do they do it?

From my window perch on a wooded hillside

   above the Big Bend of the ever-shifting Hood Canal waters,

I observe ducks as dots below, black and white creatures

    with wings and miscellaneous bump outs like beaks, paddle feet

Until they transform in swift synchronicity,

I gasp as they lift wing to wing inches above the liquid surface, no ripples

Ballet dancers in bird form

Clickety click

Bird masters fly in seamless perfection without trace.

 SNOW SHAKEOUT

Olympic Mountains shake out snowy skirts

Into flakes and waterfalls,

Blend and become gray waters of Hood Canal,

Dust fir tree candles, unleash pollen,

Brush white against rooftops marked by pigeon feet.

All shimmers white and glittery silver

Against dark slices of sky and reflected water wavelets.

As we slept the night buried in comfy bed covers, 

Mountain Masters shook the snow globe.

PORTAL ON A POCKET BEACH

Tuesday afternoon, I thread my way down the Beach Trail

Cross the wooden bridge

Tread cautiously over rickety stairs

To step onto our pebbled pocket beach

Shaped like a crescent.

A pocket of the Salish Sea

Sidebar to the Great Pacific Ocean off the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

Instantly, I sense I’ve passed through an unseen Portal,

Entered a different world, an alternate universe owned by sea not land.

Loons paddle past,  feet hidden below water,

A pair skitter off, tease and call.

Low tide creates a space soccer field size, opened wide, wave to shore—

Tide water recedes momentarily, reveals sea urchins, gooey ducks who squirt from beneath pebbles.

Sea stars once spread thickly here in riotous colors of orange, purple, butterscotch.  They are gone.

Waves touch our mooring buoy softly,

A raven caws on one side; mate answers,

One flies to join the other warning “Human here!  Human here!”

 A seagull observes, perches on our neighbor’s mooring buoy,

White on white on white

I scrabble through pebbles to the beach edge by hefty, craggy boulders, moss-covered.

Ravens warn something that moves quickly in the rocks, scuffles past,

     turns to peer at me.

Something butterscotch brown, furry—

I recognize an otter, a river baby otter, moves like a penguin

We stare at one another.

I move stealthily back to the steps, sit and wait

The gull flies off, a large otter passes beyond the buoy

A brown figure eight in the water—only head and back visible.

There has been a pause in the world, a crash caused by a deadly virus

Time has been shifted, gifted, a chance to rethink

A future can be rebuilt in this kind of pause

What will be reclaimed, what will be changed, what will be lost, ejected?