Musings -- on the editor's mind

The Skagit River Poetry Festival was nigh, and so the volunteers came, fluttering in, silently, unsung, no trumpets, just a steady trudging from one venue to another. They planted signs of poetry, literally, and an occasional feather left in a room, randomly.

It was a different spring migration, this one biennially, with a flock of odd ducks, not in any birder’s book, attracting a different breed of tourists.

Poems started popping up, opening like mid-spring flowers, around town last Wednesday, as volunteers started digging into their tasks. They busily flitted from one building and chore to another, planting poems, hanging banners, hanging portrait poems, sticking name labels on attendee packets, making up packets, unloading cars – and that was all before 1 p.m. that first day.

Throughout the week, volunteers filled in, helped out, Rick Shorten checking wristband passes at a door, Charles Talman taking down tables and setting up chairs, Linda Talman recruiting folks and assigning tasks. And these are only a few of the flock, uncategorized, not named, not ticked off any list, but essential to the show going on.

Anthony, done with his first year at Gonzaga University, and somewhere between volunteering and being recruited by his grandparents, worked full time throughout, an always present presence.

Children’s portraits went up, 21 banners zip-tied to Maple Hall’s balcony railing. Students’ poems hung too, part of their portraits, part of the display Sherry Chavers tacked to the back wall bulletin board.

And many more poetry foundation board members chipped in, especially Cindy Tracy, throwing in as a bonus her husband Dave who worked as often as his day job allowed. In a contest of modesty, down-playing her contributions, Georgia Johnson, culinary artist as well as poet extraordinaire, was, typically, refusing to compete as her desserts disappeared into poet’s mouths.

Eric Christensen, everywhere, played hooky, taking two days off from his high school teaching job. Kyp Bisagna, floating from task to task, and keeping up with a myriad of details. Kathy Willins, present, seemingly from beginning to end. And the rest of the board, helping, helping, helping.

Board president Steven Dolmatz all but lived in Maple Hall, except when he was putting up or taking down chairs and tables in the Civic Garden Club.

And so it was, if not a Poet Spring, certainly a Poets’ Weekend, they happy as clams at high tide, not even knowing how hard the pull of the moon, its gravity rushing seawater through the channel, the poets not imagining the effort that went into pampering as well as honoring them.

And the Mother Goose, who made sense of all that free verse, Executive Director Molly McNulty executed the plan and preformed as emcee, another biennial poetry festival imagined and then labored into existence.

Full disclosure: I am on the board of the Skagit River Poetry Foundation.