I hope you’ll consider coming to Rainier Beach this Sunday from 4-7pm to celebrate the arts of poetry postcards and our little urban stream that we hope someday will be totally daylighted. What magic streams have and what persistence dxʷwuqʷəb (in Lushootseed) has to pop up out of the ground south of Kubota Garden, pass through that garden’s “necklace of ponds” to go through Sturtevant Ravine, then through a pipe underneath the Safeway parking lot, past Safeway and Rainier Beach High only to experience daylight in its last 440 feet. & to have such great music from Jim O’Halloran and Susan Pascal is a blessing. Maybe you can read one of your postcard poems.

The details for this Sunday:

WHEN: Sunday 4-7pm, June 8, 2025
WHERE: Mapes Creek Shelter between Be’er Sheva Park & Atlantic City Boat Launch
8650 55th Ave S, Seattle, WA 98118
WHAT: postcard collage making, pot luck (there is a bbq there), music by Jim O’Halloran (flute) and Susan Pascal (vibes) and you reading a postcard poem.

I am grateful to all the good work being done in Rainier Beach by the Link to Lake folks, Engage Educate and Discover Mapes Creek, the Rainier Beach Action Coalition, the Rainier Beach Community Club and the Rainier Beach Urban Farm & Wetlands. We are also grateful to 4Culture for funding via Public Free Access and Doors Open.

I am also grateful to the community that has been forming for 19 years in connection with the Poetry Postcard Fest. Registration is open for this year’s fest which starts July 4. Details: https://cascadiapoeticslab.org/poetrypostcards/

If you are in the neighborhood, or can make it at 7am Sunday, Kosho Itagaki and others associated with Temple Eishoji will do a cleansing of the boat launch and a cleanup of litter from around the creek and nearby area. People of all traditions are welcome to participate.