Still no Ceasefire

Sauvie Island stands in the Columbia River as an escape from urban Portland. It’s only twenty minutes from my apartment by car, but it’s another whole way of life. Farmland. Wetlands. Resting place for migrating birds. No shops, no restaurants, no gas stations. At this time of year most of the island is reserved for hunters (1st extra), and I could hear shotguns blasting from every direction, sometimes startlingly near me. I wore a red jacket and walked only in roadways for safety, grateful that the shots were only geese and duck hunters and not armies. 

Migrating Sandhill Cranes have arrived (see 2nd and 3rd extras), pumpkins are being harvested, and today I could see all three massive volcanic mountains that surround us, all standing white against the sky. That’s Tahoma (re-named Mt. Rainier by genocidal settlers) left of center, bathed in alpen glow just before sunset. While I was lining up my shot, three Sandhill Cranes obligingly flew into it from the right.  

And as I was listening to the primeval throat-call of cranes, Israeli military forces were entering Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza. 

Ceasefire. Thirty-eight days, and still no ceasefire in Gaza.