I did a book presentation and signing at Novel Bay Booksellers in Sturgeon Bay today from 2 to 4 p.m. A crowd showed up and a bunch of that novel and other books that I have written sold. Ethel came and took a couple of photographs. Thanks go to John Maggitti and Liz Welter for sponsoring a great event!
Filed under poems, Poetry, Thomas Davis
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
On our walk today
a large flock of Canadian geese
rose up into the air.
Then a single call came
from somewhere deep in the woods,
a haunting sound made
by an injured or sick bird,
calling for help.
Migrating geese leave
their injured and sick behind.
Winter overtakes them
and ends their suffering.
It is like the Kurdish people
we left behind today,
or the Central Americans—
they reached for our hands,
crying out through their pain and suffering,
and we turned our backs on them,
left them for their enemies and winter
to finish them off.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, poems, Poetry
a pastel by Ethel Mortenson Davis
Filed under Art, Art by Ethel Mortenson Davis, Ethel Mortenson Davis
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
He is a great Siberian Tiger,
the last one.
They have him
in a steel cage
with thick grey bars—
there, at the center
of our town.
Sharpened sticks
lie all around him.
He has many wounds,
but there is still fire
in his eyes.
A young girl
comes to the cage,
crying and afraid.
She says,
“You must stop this now.
You must save this animal.
He is the last
of a royal species—
a sacred kind.”
She knew the combination
of the lock and opened
the cage door.
He sprang towards
the light, carrying
with him the girl’s heart.
“Go to the most northern
region of our country.
There the forests
will save and protect you.
There is still yet time.
There is still yet time
to balance God in the universe.”
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, poems, Poetry
A great review of “In the Unsettled Homeland of Dreams” has been published in “The Peninsula Pulse,” a publication that distributes about 9,000 copies in the winter. The summer circulation is more like 16,000. It is by far the best local coverage publication I know about, and I appreciate this review by Alissa Ehmke.
My daughters, Sonja Bingen and Mary Wood, posted this on their Facebook pages, alerting me to this.
Filed under Published Books, Thomas Davis
The book launch with Deb Wayman at Faire Isle Bookstore for In the Unsettled Homeland of Dreams was spectacular. The novel is about a community of slaves escaping from the boot heel of Missouri near Mingo Swamp to West Harbor on Washington Island off the Door Peninsula in Wisconsin before the Civil War. Faire Isle is a small store, so it was so crowded that my daughter Mary and son in law Rick stood outside to listen to the reading I gave. The engagement of the audience, many of whom had families that had lived on the island for generations, was exciting. There were people who had already read the novel at the launch and they, like the reviewers so far, were highly complimentary, and even excited about the novel. The launch was a wonderful experience. I pretty sold out of all the books I had originally ordered and will have to order more today.
Filed under Published Books, Thomas Davis
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
He is not just a gatherer
of ripened berries and roots,
plants of every kind,
but he is a gatherer of days
and lights and secret places
where treasures abound.
He’s not just a gatherer
of summer strawberries,
blueberries, and blackcaps,
the northern red cranberries,
but a gatherer of open spaces,
a quiet still hill,
and a meeting at last
of his wild woman.
She is there in the blanket
of golden chanterelles
among the deep pockets
of the forest
where he finally ravishes her
with kisses to her mouth
and blowing hair.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, poems, Poetry
