Peaceful Thought

For today's Peaceful Thought I want to share a poem I wrote in 2008, after my first experience competing in the Goat Mountain Gallop.

(Giveaway winners are listed below the poem!)

Goat Mountain Gallop

It comes down to
the way teasels clutch
fistfuls of spring snow.
The red Farmall tractor,
that robin rocketing above the meadow,
four black cows standing knee-deep in green,
a white wicker loveseat on a porch.

Under a watery April sun
barbed-wired fences lined the silence,

Into this great bowl of stillness,
the runners came, and came, and came,

and suddenly, in the far pasture,
there were horses:
thirty or more,
hooves drumming, and thrumming,
wheeling, cutting, charging the fence
with split-second precision,
showing the men how,

while great flocks of geese wove a semaphore
through the sky, ancient signs,
circling, separating, coalescing, always
crying North! North!

No sounds existed beyond the rushing of wings and hooves,
so we ran.

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Giveaway Results

First of all, thank you to everyone who so generously donated money to the Clean Water project. I was humbled by your thoughtfulness. I was even more humbled to realize that even walking 13 miles is less than many women have to walk every day to get water--and it's not even clean--for their families. It is heartbreaking to contrast their struggles with the ease of our lives.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I did not ask that you share your donation amounts with me, but many of you did, and I know that we raised at least $250.00 for the Clean Water project. All of the money was donated online - directly to the charity, which uses 100% of the funds for digging wells and placing pumps where they are needed.

And now...the giveaway winners! (Who were scientifically selected using a clever Random Generator on my trusty laptop...)

Winning 2 bars of Carol's handmade Eau Joy soap:

• Jill (a wonderful friend from high school--lives in California)
• Ginger (another wonderful friend from high school--lives in New York)
• Patricia (Katie's mother-in-law--lives in Virginia)

Winning 1 bar of the smells-so-good soap:

• Sarah (my granddaughter who lives here with me!)

Have a wonderful Sunday everyone, and thank you again.