from  On a Planet Sailing West

                      As each of us wait, along with the horses, the great blue heron, the salmon, the wolves and the butterflies for our little portion of days to be used up, our galaxy drifts westward toward the stars of Hydra Centaurus Supercluster pulled by some unknown force. On the margins of this convoy, children and puppies and cubs are still being born. The sun and the moon still travel with us across the sky.

           It’s true; we do not see starlight in the malls. We do not feel the effects of interstellar wind in the afternoon stillness of our office. But we have discovered something. We have discovered forgiveness, simplicity of life, contentment, and telling the truth. These are our little achievements on this modest world on the outer rim of the Milky Way. We are not alive amid terrestrial forests and galactic superclusters to please some corporation or bank or military official. We are alive with the giant redwoods, the bald eagle, the cougar, with all the animals and plants, during a few orbits of our planet around its star, to wonder, to embrace it all with compassion, and to be happy.     Linda Clarke   ©2005

     Linda Clarke's gentle yet fierce RAVINGS remind us of what a terrible responsibility it is to be human, to be caretakers of our planet. We must both recoil at the damage we do, yet also revel in the beauty and joy which surrounds us in even the smallest details of our lives.  This is a great read that will inspire, sadden and sensitize, even as it humanizes.                          DR. MARLENE SPRINGER, President of the College of Staten Island, Author of Ethan Frome:  A Nightmare of Need, Thomas Hardy’s Use of Allusion as well as other works.

RAVINGS,    never abrasive, running as a rivulet through a garden proclaiming the perfection of nature, each pebble a devotional sublime.

MR. WILLIAM CASAMO,     Labor Organizer

     I love the beauty, integrity, joy and righteous rage of this collection of writings about the earth, life, death, and the meaning of it all.      DR. PHYLLIS CHESLER, Emerita Professor          Author of thirteen books including                    The  Death of Feminism, and Women and Madness .

           It is as if it were all happening now, the beginnings of the world, genesis.  This is lyric writing of great majesty, an eye contemplating open space over water, the quality of time, meticulously observed in the slightest gesture of a small wild animal to the massed presence of the planet itself, drifting westward bearing all life with it.                 DR. KATE MILLETT, Author of Sexual Politics, Mother Millett, and The Politics of Cruelty among others.

     This book is a love letter to the species.  Linda Clarke has given us a passionate and articulate homage to the integrity of nature in all its terrifying and beautiful incarnations.                               DR. ELEANOR PAM, Professor Emerita

writing ~ publishing ~ ravings ~ music ~ explorations