New Website Up And Running...

Greetings from snowy  Bear Valley!

I've got a new website up and running and will most likely post most blog updates and other madness there, with an occasional visit to this old page. Feel free to check that site out and sign up for updates!

Thanks! My new co-authored book drops this March from St. Martins. It is called Never Quit, and so far the early reviews indicate this is a book readers are going to devour.



www.donrearden.com

The Campfire

the campfire is everything 

the ring of flames

bring tranquility

to the unease 

of modern life 

worries melt

fears burn away

flickers of humanity return

the children poke sticks

the adults stir the embers

we all live and die 

by fire in some form

but the campfire 

the campfire is everything 

[poem #30 for April! National poetry month.]

Helena Spector, Doctor of Philosophy of Cookies

she taught them to love writing

one kind cookie at a time 

carried thousands of bags of Chips Ahoy

to class each day

sentences by sugar

commas by chocolate 

she made paragraphs palatable

she taught them to transform

one idea morsel at a time

into something lasting

something important

something yummy

The Teacher of the Fishermen

you can give a man a fish

or teach a man to fish

but you cannot teach

a man to teach

the fisherman who first 

shared the magic 

of the line 

lured the fish

another watched 

then tried  

taught herself 

tied the knot

set the hook

then she taught

her son to fish

a daughter watched

then tried

the brother learned to fish

the daughter became 

the teacher of the fishermen

who would learn 

for a lifetime

Forecast for Tears

mostly scattered

partly clear

turning to light

heavy at times

developing later

beginning earlier

morning, mid-morning

in the day

the afternoon

evening

throughout the night

mist, drizzle

torrential downpour

more of the same tomorrow 

with a few breaks

here and there

then sun

This Is For You

Dear ____________,

This is for you 

I wish it were ________

that I could drop everything

to be there _____ for you now and

knowing that you are ______

makes me ________ inside

I would ____ for you

and ______ to take

away your ________.

But there are no words

to fill in the ________

So instead I do 

the only thing I know

and write these three words

________ _________ _______

_______ yours,

______________

Vacation Destination: Chernobyl

about the night before

the meltdown 

a ride on the Ferris wheel 

the bumper cars colliding

sundown and 

Reactor 4 is fine

is the thirty year memory

of the night before

seared like a tree shadow

against a barn 

in the flash, then gone?

do the tourists

who enter the Exclusion Zone

to see the mutated catfish

patrolling the cooling ponds

only hope to spot a radioactive wolf?

or do they even wonder

what tomorrow will bring?