What the Wind Says

By John Miatech

John Miatechs poems speak of wild places, of the spiritual relationship between humans and the Earth, of the deeper belief that everything in the natural world is alive and connected, and that you can find this out for yourself if you take the time. Growing up in Michigan, John has lived in California for most of his adult life. This has allowed him to roam the rich landscape of lakes and rivers, deserts, mountains and forests that these two regions provide, giving him a deep bond with the secret places of both areas, and with the voices that speak within their borders.

Wide open spaces inhabit these poems, mountains, hawks, rain, sky, pancakes, boyhood, John Miatechs lines leap across the Western landscape and land in the human heart. Theres a common humanity here this reader recognizes, in language thats accessible and, you could say, unfancy, which these days is the highest praise.

- Clive Matson, author Let the Crazy Child Write! And Chalcedonys Songs

John Miatech is a poet who mines for crystals. He unearths the numinous hidden in solid ground, sifts through layers of memory and presence, then deftly articulates the healing force of what he finds. His poems are masterful distillations of waters that flow from the heart. Once you are a river, everything changes, he explains in a poem about the rain.

- Cynthia Potem, producer of Poetry Basket, kidefm.org

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Apr 16, 2012
• ISBN: 9781468565027

John Miatech

John Miatech lives in redwood country, within driving distance of the Pacific Ocean, the Sierra Nevadas and the Mojave Desert. John has done many things in his lifetime so far: worked on a farm, loaded trucks, been a construction worker, served in the Navy, had a business field collecting minerals all over the Southwest, and taught every grade from 1st to 12th in several different cultural and economic settings. When John was in first grade, his teacher asked the class what they would like to be when they grew up. While other boys were excited about being a carpenter, or a fireman, or a ball player, John’s reply was that he wanted to be “a grandfather”. To him, even at that early age, a grandfather meant someone who was wise and kind, with the power to nourish others making their way through life. With his poems, John has discovered, with gratitude, that his wish of being “a grandfather” has finally borne fruit. My interest in poetry began with garage band lyrics, moving into reading and writing poetry in 1969 when a friend introduced me to Robert Bly's Silence in the Snowy Fields. I honed my writing skills through giving readings and attending workshops led by Robert Bly, Robert Creeley, James Wright, Richard Hugo, Leslie Mormon Silko, Etheridge Knight and William Stafford. Recently, I was the winner of the San Francisco Writer's Conference poetry award. I have been published in several journals in the past, as well as having two self published volumes of poetry; Things to Hope For and Waiting for Thunder. In my working life I have worked on a farm, driven and loaded trucks, worked assembly lines, done construction, owned a small business and taught for over 24 years at every grade level from 1st to 12th. I am presently a high school teacher (special education) in Sebastopol, Ca. I have one daughter, McKenna.

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Contents

Things I Carry

Words You Said

Message from the Spirit World

Place of Great Water

Kingston Range in March

Two Horses, July

The Way It Is

Stone Woman

Hawk

Meetings

Before Dawn

Badger

What Grandfather Said

Waiting for Thunder

What You Become

Canoeing up the Moose River

Ruby Mountains Haiku

Daughter

Poem before a divorce

One Kind of Goodbye

Dreams to Remember

After the Rain

Important Things

Ann Arbor

Train Song

Passing Through

Sea Green

Spider

Thistles

Lizards

Autumn

Late Fall, Northridge

Sowbug

One Night in the Hills

Desert in Autumn

The Marten

Story

What the Wind Says

Stories from the Ground

Toward Oblivion

Inverness

Calling the Rain

Storm Season

Winter Storm, Lake Michigan

Answer

Big Mountain

Still Something to Do

More Stories That Could Be True

One American Dream

One Kind of Pleasure

Things I’ve Learned

Journey

Winter Warnings

Ghosts

"The passing wind:

The spirit that whirls the leaf

Knows it perhaps"

Hottentot

Things I Carry

The chestnut grandpa found…

So smooth, so brown,

Words You Said

(for William Stafford)

Words you said often come to me at the strangest times,

Like now, when I think I am empty,

And I need them the most

Its times like this, when the thoughts of a poet

Or a wise