(For the Water Protectors)
O! Poet, the clouds you love to watch
carry our passion, our pain.
If you listen, you can hear the whisper
behind the scenery of the evening news.
Bless our innocence by knowing
we are innocent by knowing
this water is our home, this sky,
our house of prayer where you
are welcome. Come in.
Shed your shoes and feel
the wisdom-dance of our path—
river of water, river of clouds, river of tears.
When you leave, don’t forget your hat.
It’s going to rain.
~ Tim Pettet
Timothy Pettet published his first poem in The Third Eye, a mimeographed journal published on and around the University of Puget Sound by anti-war hippies and “peaceniks.” Over the years, he has published his poems in various journals and publications. He is currently celebrating his first actual book of poems. Titled Accidental Dancer, the book sports a cover painted by his wife, Mary Pettet and is published by Flint Hills Publications. You can find out more at: Timothypettet.com/accidentaldancer.
Guest Editor Annette Hope Billings is an award-winning author and actress whose dynamic style of reciting has led fans to dub her “Maya of the Midwest!” Her first book of poetry, A Net Full of Hope (2015), garnered the 2015 ARTSConnect ARTY Award in Literature in Topeka, Kansas. Descants for a Daughter followed in 2016 and serves as a collection of affirmations from a parent’s heart. Billings most recent publication is Just Shy of Stars (Spartan Press, 2018). Her poetry and short stories also appears in the following anthologies: Gimme Your Lunch Money: Heartland Poets Respond to Bullying (2016), Twisting Topeka (2016), Our Last Walk: Using Poetry for Grieving and Remembering Our Pets (2016), and Kansas Time + Place: An Anthology of Heartland Poetry (Balkans Press, 2017) and Revealed (2017). Billings’ poetry can also be found in both online and print publications including Inscape/Washburn University, Coal City Press, Microburst and Konza Magazine.
The Coop: A Poetry Cooperative 
Last night, my husband and I watched a documentary about the mountain ranges of Colorado and Arizona, how they were formed, how old they were, and other interesting facts. The aerial shots of the mountains, valleys, and rivers were breathtaking. I thought as I watched, “This is what we have to hold in our hearts.”
[…] I add a little natural antiseptic: A cup of tea on my porch; a half-hour reading Timothy Pettet or David Arnold Hughes. If all else fails, I throw my cooler and my bag from Guatemala in the […]