poem prayer rain

Rain Dance for California – A Poem/Prayer

The skies here in northern California are still a crazy shade of apricot, and sunlight has a reddish tinge, so I was moved to write a rain dance for California, a poem to the rains we desperately need. Once, in Hawaii, I learned an ancient hula dance said to bring rain. And the rains came, for three days! More than 20 fires are still burning, but rain is in the forecast for next week.

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Your Protagonist’s Thought Patterns

Emotion is important in fiction, but thought and will are also a huge component of character and character development. You can identify with a character’s thoughts and decisions when she’s under stress. One of life’s pleasurable but stressful activities is travel. Since my novel’s main character is on a three-week, intensive tour of Renaissance Italy, stress is a given. May Gold combats it through her Gratitude Practice. I gave May this habit of enumerating things…

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apple pie Easter National Poetry Month prayer

Thanks to editor Angelique Jamail, my poem “Prayers for Everywhere” appears on her site Sappho’s Torque today. I’m delighted that it appears on the weekend of Passover and Easter, as I think prayers should be borderless and expansive, helpful to all, everywhere. Which is where the poem started, actually. The poem is from my book Gods of Water and Air (reviewed on The Pedestal). Happy Easter, happy April, and have a poetic day! Buy or…

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