World Poetry Canada International Peace Festival is proud to announce that the poet Carla Shafer will be receiving a World Poetry Empowered Poet Award on October 19th at 1:30 pm at room 7000, SFU downtown. *Reservations only. For more information: 604-526-4729 or ariadnes@uniserve.com
Carla Shafer is the author of several chapbooks: Rain Song, Lessons in Beekeeping, Voice Lessons, and Spice Market. Poems have appeared in various publications, such as, Labyrinth, Whatcom Places II and Crosscurrents. She is the founder of Chuckanut Sandstone Writers Theater and an originating collaborator with the Bellingham Repertory Dance Company of Phrasings: In Word and Dance, which is an annual event combining poetry and modern dance. She lives in Bellingham, WA. Find her on Facebook, chucknutsandstone. blogspot.com and e-mail: chuckanutsandstone@gmail.com
Two ways to be a Pacifist
If you lie down at the tideline
let the surf fall over you
pull you with debris and sand
into the sea – then push and
roll your limp body back onto
the beach—you will be picked at
by seagulls and sand fleas – while
the moon pulls and pushes earth’s
water in continual motion
of fullness and withering.
Or imagine yourself as a leaf to ride passage
in a river. Idly you watch as it grinds away
at the bank carving a bend. At the right
moment you push your legs out
against the moss and stone border
reduce the hazard of coming to harm.
You turn with the current into deeper waters
where a pool widens and traveling slows—
while you think your way downstream,
plan how to stay afloat, resist being pulled
under a log or high-ended on a sandbar—
you have taken the river—made it your own.
Carla Shafer
Bellingham, WA (C)
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Great news!