The rough bark of huge evergreens, cool mist of the Northwest fall, winter, spring, and summer, pulse of my mothers singing, waves like rain lapping pebbles, collaboration among sisters to enhance the public appearance of each, negotiating to meet the simultaneously urgent need to use one bathroom, engaging a flywheel to make dresses, visible mending of relationships, years of teaching my sons as I compose research reports, manage data architects and coders tying together gigs of social service records – and a curious draw to the words “lets go” – influence my poems. My poetry has been read at the Northwest Indoor Kite Festival (Long Beach, Washington, 2017), in local poetry slams and open mics, and exhibited at The Josephy Center for Arts and Culture (The Wild Landscape, Art and Words of the Zumwalt Prairie, 2018). I am also the author of South Sound Places, a guide to Thurston County (Four Seasons Press, 1994)..