Vo l . 5 N o . 2 wanted to fare well in the world; those to whose advice we listened so often and gave such credence that now their messages and maxims rattle around in our heads always, sometimes displacing what we have begun to acknowledge and believe for ourselves. Maybe Kabir serves a useful purpose but, as a reader, I am disappointed that it is he who has the final word in the book-length poem, words that not only fall short of the poet’s experience of driving home to cross paths with two moose who race beside his car with “blazing eyes,” but words that explain that “only the holiness inside / could make those eyes so bright.” I want to argue with that reckoning. I want to hearken to the poet, that man who slipped from a sandstone shelf into near-oblivion once, the man who was swept overboard on that wild river and who came up with the river in his lungs. I trust when he speaks whereas – and maybe this is my own bias rearing its head – I just want to sit a moment in what the poet brings to the table and not be rushed away by Kabir. Maybe though, in the end, the reader must allow Kabir’s intrusions, a place alongside the poet and his poem which grows richer for Woodward’s drawings which also sit nearby with their own depictions of what was seen along that river, but which do not refute or explain or interpret the experiences of which the poet writes. Maybe the poet, in his own wisdom, has allowed Kabir a place in the poem just as he allowed the war and the havoc it was making to intrude and have its own place. While I may distrust Kabir’s almost-too-easy platitudes, I do trust the poet and his instincts and am grateful for having been invited to accompany him on his journey along that River of Light.
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CONTRIBUTORS Luther Allen writes poems and designs buildings from Sumas Mountain in northwestern Washington. He also facilitates SpeakEasy, a community poetry reading series in Bellingham. His collection of poems, The View from Lummi Island, can be found at http://othermindpress.wordpress. com Jennifer Andrulli has a base camp in Anchorage, Alaska from which she explores the World. The journey continues. Thomas Bacon In Alaska, western, eastern and native cultures mix between city and wilderness. I’m fortunate to have lived here most of my life. Christianne Balk loves the Anglo-Saxon rhythms of everyday street talk. Her books include Bindweed, (Macmillan) and Desiring Flight (Purdue University Press.) Honors include the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets and Peregrine Journal’s 2013 Poetry Award. Her work has appeared in Poem of the Week (poemoftheweek.org), The Atlantic Monthly, Cirque, Measure, and other journals. Please see Christiannebalk. com Gabrielle Barnett has contributed both poetry and photography to Cirque. Her non-fiction has been featured in the Arts section of the Anchorage Daily News, as well as POL, Art Matters, Next Stage, Wild Voices, and Contact Quarterly. An improvisational dancer, as well as a writer, she enjoys experimenting with mixed discipline performance. Miriam Beck recently earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Oregon State University. She lives in Anchorage. My name is Tiffany Benna. Originally from Iowa, I moved to the mountains I’d created out of clouds in my youth, spending five years in Idaho and then adventuring on to Petersburg, Alaska for seven. I continue to write, hike, kayak, garden, and occasionally take a good picture, finding inspiration in the natural resources I am privileged to help manage, in the relationships with my family and friends, and in my faith that ever encourages me to grow and create beauty from whatever the world offers. Marilyn Borell has been living and writing in Anchorage, Alaska for nearly three decades. Her recent work has appeared in Cirque and Ice Floe. After a career of child welfare in remote Yup’ik villages followed by medical social work, Gretchen Brinck, MSW, retired to pursue writing (and hiking). She is currently revising her memoir about her Alaska experiences, The Fox Boy, for Alaska University Press. Cirque has carried several of her pieces and honored one with the Andy Hope Award. Her previous non-fiction book, The Boy Next Door, Pinnacle, came out 1999. Harold Brink first fell in love with Alaska in 1968 on the ferry to Haines; then, driving to Fairbanks to look for a teaching job. He was drafted into the Army first. The story here is taken from his life in basic training. He subsequently has returned to Alaska many times to backpack and float and fish in the wild country. “We Never Saw Him Again” is a chapter in his newly-published memoir: Come Down to the River: A Memoir of Adventure. Zachariah Bryan is a reporter and photographer for the Tundra Drums newspaper, based in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta of Alaska. He was born and raised in Washington State and is a West Coast kid through and through.