Thursday May 22 \u2014> July 30<\/b><\/p>\n
1)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Part One: \u00a0May 22<\/span>: \u00a0\u00a0“Remember\u00a0sun screen” \u2014 \u00a0 Pine Ridge, SD is about 3400 ft above sea level, \u00a0sun shines more directly here than in Motown at 300 ft elevation. \u00a0 In most years, about a week after commencement and Eastern Market Flower days, I pack for a week on the Pine Ridge Lakota Reservation. \u00a0It sits in western South Dakota; you can see the profile of The Black Hills 70 miles off to the north and west; \u00a0you can stand still near wild Badland formations, created mostly by wind. \u00a0Improbably with desert-like terrain, \u00a0you can also stand still to listen to meadowlarks, and frogs, in marshy water holes 100 yards across. \u00a0 It\u2019s because I lived here a long time that this particular beauty melts my soul and refreshes my spirit.<\/p>\n So do conversations with soul friends of 40 years or more. \u00a0I come to Pine Ridge to renew the origins of my adulthood in this place of beauty and laughter and grief. \u00a0It slows my steps and my breathing. \u00a0And reminds me that the normal work year has ended and summer has begun. \u00a0There\u2019s \u00a0still plenty of work time but the pace is different. \u00a0 For you too, I hope.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 2)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Part Two: July 30<\/span>: \u00a0 \u00a0About 3:00 am on July 30 I will pull off highway 35 in Upper Michigan at Fox Point Park. \u00a0The park is mostly beach and shore grass and pines, 30 miles north of my home town, Marinette Wisconsin. \u00a0I will have said goodbye to my sister Mary and eased into a long drive around the top of Lake Michigan, the first 4 hours in pre-dawn stillness. \u00a0 No one is there at Fox Point at 3:00 am. \u00a0I walk to the beach, and breath a little. \u00a0 I pray the Lakota Prayer of the Six Directions<\/a>, a very small human next to this vast lake of my childhood. \u00a0 I\u2019ll drive around the north shore, into the sunrise, then over the Mac Bridge and head south toward Detroit and home. \u00a0 \u00a0The prayer in the dark of night and all this water opens me to stillness. \u00a0 It marks the end of summer and a turn toward a new work year.<\/p>\n This is pretty autobiographical for a workday post.\u00a0\u00a0I write this way today by way of announcing that the work day poetry list will take a summer break too, offering me time for gardening, baseball, and nordic trac and for reading some poetry.<\/p>\n See you Monday August 4. Work day posts will begin for the coming year.<\/p>\n Have a blest summer.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n john sj<\/p>\n p.s.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 a recording of the song of the Western Meadowlark<\/p>\n\n