The Timberline Review: Transformation

By Willamette Writers

The Timberline Review is an all-volunteer literary journal published by Willamette Writers. Our focus is on showcasing emerging talent. This issue includes fiction, nonfiction, scripts, and poetry from C. Lill Ahrens, Claire Alongi, Amy Baskin, Eleanor Campbell, Margaret Chula, Natalie Dale, Caitlin Diehl, Anne Gudger, Michael Hann

• Language: English
• Publisher: Willamette Writers
• Release date: Jul 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9798986422206

Willamette Writers

Willamette Writers is the largest writers organization in the Pacific Northwest. Writers of all genres and at all stages of their careers come to our meetings, annual conference, and workshops to connect with their community, develop their craft, and advance their career.

Book preview

The Timberline Review, Issue 11, 2022

Editor-in-Chief: Maren Bradley Anderson

Executive Director: Kate Ristau

Associate Editor-in-Chief: Louise Cary Barden

Fiction Editor: Rankin Johnson

Poetry Editor: Suzy Harris

Nonfiction Editor: Manny Frishberg

Script Editor: Grant Rosenberg

Art Editors: Jan Baross, Kathleen Caprario

Copyeditors: Angela Celeste Atkinson, Michael Colvin

Proofreader: Jaime Dunkle

Readers: Ella Ananeva, Jason Arias, Tina Brazeau, Linda Caradine, Ellen Kozyra Currier, Morgan Grey, Kathy Haynes, Asela Lee Kemper, Stephanie Striffler

Cover Design: Lee Moyer

Interior Design: Vinnie Kinsella, Indigo: Editing, Design, and More

Editorial Correspondence: http://timberlinereview.com/contact/

© Copyright 2022 Willamette Writers

ISBN Print 978-1-7320427-9-7

ISBN eBook 979-8-9864222-0-6

Dedication

Thank you to the Willamette Writers Board of Directors for continuing to trust me with the Timberline Review. The staff of this journal is entirely made up of volunteers, including the editor-in-chief position. If you like what you see here and want to know how it is done, consider joining Willamette Writers and volunteering to work on the next issue of the Timberline Review.

Contents

Dedication

Transformation | by Maren Bradley Anderson

The View is Better | Photograph by Kitt Patten

The Astronomer Has Wings | Poem by Keli Osborn

Every Interaction I’ve Had with the Moon | Poem by Colette Tennant

Flowers of Unusual Origin | Fiction by Claire Alongi

Grounded | Poem by Kate Maxwell

A Long Way from Home | Poem by David Mihalyov

Deepest Light | Fiction by Sandra Siegienski

Prunes | Poem by Michael Hanner

Some Sense of It | Poem by Nancy Nowak

The Moment of becoming an Adult | Photograph by Kitt Patten

Your Music | Poem by Melody Wilson

Walking Trail in Cunningham Park | Poem by Joyce Schmid

Skin Memory | Poem by Margaret Chula

Things I Will Never Do | Nonfiction by Caitlin Diehl

In the Potter’s Studio | Poem by Glen Vecchione

the naming | Poem by Lucinda Trew

I Would Have Stayed | Fiction by Natalie Dale

Forgiveness | Nonfiction by Cristina White

Learning to Run Again | Script by Lisa Lee

Lost in Time | Photograph by Dee Moore

The End Was Near | Poem by Matthew J. Spireng

A Few Freak Things | Nonfiction by Nyla McCarthy

Wishes | Photograph by Micki Selvitella

Dressed in White | Fiction by Maddie Silva

Game Night | Script by N. Eleanor Campbell

Taller Now | Poem by Tor Lowell

Self-Portrait as Comfort Food | Poem by Amy Baskin

Here’s My Heart | Nonfiction by Anne Gudger

To Be Consumed | Poem by Madronna Holden

Before and After | Drawing by C. Lill Ahrens

Contributors

Transformation

Letter from the Editor

When we chose Transformation as our theme for this issue, we wanted artists to explore life in flux. We hoped they would consider their world transformed; we anticipated that they would examine hope and possibility and change. We thought perhaps they would look into the future and help us settle the past.

This theme made me think of butterflies like the ones on the cover of this issue. The butterflies I imagined were born of wretchedness, but were being transformed into other-worldly, impossible beings that would transcend the horror of what happened to them in their chrysalises.

I thought that visual representation of change would be a metaphor for what we’ve all been through in the last several years. But I know now that my personal transformation has not made me a lighter-than-air being.

Although the sun has finally ended an unusually long, wet, and gloomy spring here in the Pacific Northwest, I still feel like one of those dark butterflies—gothic and floating, but not at all light. I feel like a creature made of stained glass, whose brittle wings are fashioned of lead barely connecting fragile panes of color, and a filament holding me above a windowsill.

And I know I am not alone. Writers and artists answered our original challenge with essays and fiction about the instants when lives change, scripts about pivotal moments, poems and pictures about shifts in perceptions. Lightning literally strikes in these pages, children grow, and visitors appear at the edge of the world. People are missed, and missions are discovered.

Sometimes the works in this volume are very dark, and sometimes they glow with love. Yet, every piece reminds us that life is hardly static. During the process of transformation, we may not understand what we will become, but we can feel the ache of our wings and perhaps the pull of the filament keeping us aloft.

Maren Bradley Anderson, Editor-in-Chief, July 2022

The View Is Better, Photograph by Kitt Patten

The View is Better

Photograph by Kitt Patten

The Astronomer Has Wings

Poem by Keli Osborn

E pur si muove. (And yet it moves.)

—attributed to Galileo

Moons of Jupiter, phases of Venus, shifting specks

on the sun. Illusions in his primitive scope,

the devil’s work. And the priests refused to look.

Waving in the winds, monarchs turn in winter

to the cypress, eucalyptus of California, Oyamel fir

of Mexico’s mountains. The fourth generation wings

between home and home, swarms unfamiliar trees

in a singular encounter. Ordinary miracles fill the air

with a hum, wonders could stagger the certain.

The astronomer wore heresy through fever, unto death.

Circling a star, earth spins mutation. Caterpillars remember

how to create the silk button, tuck into chrysalis and wait.

Every Interaction I’ve Had with the Moon

Poem by Colette Tennant

leaves me flirtier somehow.

I mean look—that coquette of a

peek-a-boo moon,

that heartbreaker, that tease,

twirling her wispy skirts

over the silvery mountains east of here.

Every interaction I’ve had with the moon

makes me an optimist again,

amazed by her sideways smile—

how it dwindles, disappears, then

grows so bright it emblazons

even November nights.

Every interaction I’ve had with the moon

reminds me: we mothers,

we’re always watching,

leaning down our faces over those we love,

humming our honeyed songs

into the sweet, bluesy dark.

Flowers of Unusual Origin

(OR A Selective Investigation of the Causes and Effects of Keraunographic Markings Upon a Teenage Female Subject)

Fiction by Claire Alongi

Mrs. Bean’s Understanding Biology Summer Assignment:

A key aspect of our class this coming year will be using our powers of observation to gain a better understanding of the world around us. This summer, I want you to pick something that you view as a common or essential piece of your life and, over a seven-to-ten-day period, observe and analyze it in the way a scientist would. You could examine your family dynamic, the way your soccer team behaves, or maybe even where your cat goes when it leaves the house. The possibilities are endless, but be creative! Look for details, ask questions, draw connections, and try to understand this thing in a new way. Do further research if you come across something interesting. Keep a log of your observations which can be turned into me on the first day of class. I hope you all have a wonderful summer and good luck!

Observations Log:

Days in house: 1

Days since incident: 4

Current time: 02:41

The Subject has not brushed her hair, washed her face, or taken a shower since returning. She was escorted into the house by The Father at approximately 14:30, and since entering her room has not left. To my knowledge, she has not yet removed her hospital band. In the brief time I was able to observe her, she appeared stiff and tired, jerky in movement. Her eyes were strangely still and distant. Her hair was limp and flat with grease, and the bags beneath her eyes were so dark they seemed painted on. The walk from the driveway, past the kitchen, through the family room and down the hall—which normally The Subject would accomplish at a sprint, especially given her propensity to flee from and avoid annoying boyfriends, The