This past weekend, we hosted a shelter-building workshop to work on outdoor skills, grow our connection to Earth, and build community. It was a small event but we had a great time. The photo here shows what we built at the base of a mother Cedar tree.

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Editorial note: this poem by our good friend and fellow DGR member William Falk is about the drought affecting California — but Washington State has just experienced it’s warmed winter on record, and now more than half of the state is experiencing official drought conditions.

My California Drought

By Will Falk

there’s water, at least,

on the coast

and that’s where I’m heading

when stopped near

Petaluma, California

a sunburnt sign

hangs over a vineyard

celebrating a family

insurance business’s

longevity

the phrase,

“through the Great Depression,

the Great Recession,

and seven wars”

is typed under

the smiling faces

of men in uniform

maybe it’s my own depression

or personal poverty

that make me ponder

my own longevity

that force me to the ocean

during these times of drought

I don’t know, but

the brown coats of sheep

are sprinkled like dust

on the tree-less voids

they call hill-sides

what once flowed through here

left cattle to settle like pebbles

in the washed-out roadbed

the vultures are thirsty

winos circling the vines

by the time they get there

they’ll find only raisins

the wars I’ve seen

are water wars

and they dry my vision

leaving me to believe

wet is only an illusion

that’s not even blood

flecked on the feathers

of red-winged blackbirds

perched uneasily

on a barbed-wire fence

This poem was originally published at the San Diego Free Press.