Blog – Page 6 – Cate Burns, Author of Libido Tsunami: Awash with the Droll in Life

The Older Woman

Whenever I visited my artist friend Josie in New York, I knew something remarkable would happen. It always did. Last month, when we’d finished viewing my exhibit of women in yoga postures at a New York art gallery close to the High Line park in West Chelsea, she asked if I wanted to drop in…

Old Joy

In old age we deserve comforts.I look around at other retireesBut can’t see myself on monthly RV trips,Guzzling beer with games on TVOr swilling daily cocktails.Friends with children and grandchildrenConstantly attend theirAthletic and musical events.With one non-reproductive adult son,My time with children is small. Artists and writers indulge their crafts.My beloved literary friend, Mary,In her…

Flush

I learn from my toilet That hate is a choice. An unreliable commode Is like a failing relationship. It hits me at the gut level. Between sobbing and a roiling bowel, I’m in the bathroom for hours, Desperate to depend on The foundations I am used to, A toilet and a mate. I consult with…

Shaman Joy

Who could resist this jolly mask carved out of yellow cedar by Tlingit artist Roy Watkins? Not me. I loved happy art and when I found this turquoise lady, we seemed to be a divine match. In native art, each carving told a story. When I asked the young, eager Tlingit trading-post clerk for this…

To Kill or Not to Kill?

Should I kill the spider inching across my table? I sat in a dilemma. I hated insects in my home. And it would be easy to swat it, an instant solution. But as I looked at the little fellow, I remembered Rosie, a tarantula ambassador at a nature exhibit outside Denver, Colorado. With rose-tinted beige…

ENTWINED: 2019 Savant Poetry Anthology

ENTWINED – 2019 Savant Poetry Anthology includes sixty-six outstanding poems by twenty-one notable poets from around the world. It features five recent poems by Kaethe Kauffman, who has won multiple first place writing awards in the national Lorin Tarr Gill Writing Competition and in the international Amsterdam, London, Los Angeles, and Paris Book Festivals. Kauffman’s…

Blessed Oblivion

Rafting down the Grand Canyon, I find myself ensconced deeply within the cycle of life, literally, a mile inside the earth with canyon walls towering above. Life abounds along the river and I watch brutal survival play out all around. We see Bighorn Sheep every day, majestically teetering on cliff edges. And if you look…

Ankle Accolade

Ankle Accolade Tons of marble teeter on crumbling ankles.After six hundred years of valiant balancing,Michelangelo’s David wobblesAnd reminds me, I owe my creaking ankles homage. They have given me decades of ecstatic jumping,High skipping,Dances from tap to hula,Meandering hikes,Deep swims,Long runs,Leaps off cliffs into heaving ocean. Now, after seventy winters, simple walksAnd occasional twisted yoga…

Time to Forget

Time to Forget Six weeks is enough time to forget My hybrid car needs gas, My hair isn’t naturally brown, My face has scars, I hate my enemies, I’m shy, I love sugar, I smoke. When compelled, I fill my gas tank, surprised. I dye my hair, disgruntled. I admit to my flawed face, humbled.…

Grieving with Underwear

I’m sure I am not the only person who has turned to underwear for solace while grieving. The day after my mother died, on a frigid January day in Seattle, I desperately dug through Mom’s closet to find her wool socks and long-johns. I had hurriedly arrived from Honolulu and shivered uncontrollably. My other siblings…

Alarm

I give regular tours at a contemporary art museum. One day when I enter the museum, I hear the dreadful sound of a car alarm coming from a back gallery. It sound like the classic one that came out twenty years ago or so. You would recognize it instantly: a screeching sound track alternates every…

Cliff Jumping

Standing at the edge of a cliff, I gage the expanding swell of a wave as it pushes its apex up the rock wall. If I catch the surf at its highest, I jump about thirteen feet. If I miss it, I plunge twenty-five feet or more. I’m wary. When the water upsurges to its…