08/06/2025
Oregon Authors:
Just a reminder that Turnstone is still accepting submissions for a companion anthology to "The Grace of Oregon Rain" to be called "Just Imagine: Oregon Horizons." Submit up to three poems in any form. Accompanying art will be eligible if in black and white. Work may have been previously published. If so, please include with your brief author bio a citation to its prior publication.
Some of you have wondered about the scope of this theme's focus. I'll include here 2 poems, both copyrighted by the author, to illustrate this idea of "looking out." I was hoping for more poems on our desert regions, farm regions, streams and waterfalls (say, looking out from under a waterfall), and mountains.
Penelope Scambly Schott
Here in Central Oregon Where the West Really Begins
Here in Central Oregon Where the West Really Begins
At the farthest east edge of the Mount Hood forest,
high over Fifteen Mile Creek, an open spot on the ridge:
long view of the home valley, past the last stand of trees,
toward rows of golden hills in the country of dry wheat.
At the east end of the valley past dwindling ponderosas,
a tidy march of orchards crests the rise, and two lines
of crowded cottonwoods squeeze the moving creek
past Ramsey Grange, down, gently now, down, through
the Dufur Valley on into town, small houses clustered
between hand-planted trees, hedges and lawns, the green
of good intentions, churches and school, post office flag,
hardware and grocery store, just one bar. Here in Dufur,
ranchers and wheat farmers drink coffee. Up in the fields,
cows munch wheat stubble. And this morning Mount Hood
glows freshly white, rising higher than silver grain elevators,
than meadowlark song in June, into a wide and perfect sky.
Everyplace is someplace, but this is where places meet.
Stop. From here you almost feel the planet rolling east.
Ruth F. Harrison
Night Lights
It’s 2:13 and she is not asleep
but trying. She’ll go warm herself some milk,
sit with the quiet, and look across the waves,
inhale the pine tree scent, and pause before
returning to her bed, take Christmas in:
plug in the lights, enjoy the silence, night,
the distant sound of surf, here near the glass.
The pane exhales a cool light essence, fresh
against her face.
She seems the only one
alive, awake here long before the dawn,
and watching the deep waves she knows are there
only because it’s west—that’s where waves are.
Across the black... nothing alive in sight.
And moments pass in solitude and dark
But now a spark appears and disappears
appears again. A crabber out there in
December’s endless night, his worklights bright.
On impulse, she unplugs the Christmas tree
and plugs it in again, to say hello
to light that speaks to her across five miles.
Three times the light blinks back, and she repeats
her greeting to the worker in the cold
before the boat is hidden by a surge
and swell of waters. She lets go that breath
when light appears again, and sparks in sign
of living presence in that larger earth
the darkness opens.
A repeat flash says:
We’re all right here because the land is there
And every soul’s alone, but that is how
life is for all of us who’ve had the luck
to be born, and will have the luck to die.
We know you’re there, the only spark in sight
this holiday. And thank you for the light.
Please submit your poems in a Word compatible attachment, not a PDF. The deadline is June 18. Turnstone's email address is [email protected]'t forget a brief author bio.
Best regards, Sandra Mason
