Eileen ‘ike’ West

Macrocosm a mess?
I micro-dose my close community of loved ones.
Distressed for too long, I shut out the shouting, hole up,
then scribble and post old-fashioned snail-mail.
I grow calm through the writing.
Others, too—I’m told—in the reading.

Dear friends, I’m finally unpacking
the last boxes and bags,
Planting a flag on the mountainside,
I mark entry to my new home in the forest.
Now, a day’s ride from any big city,
I’m give-or-take an hour east of the Pacific.
Ultimately, Maestro Weather orchestrates
the length of drive time to anywhere.

Open an envelope, expose a handwritten letter—
it’s rare and well-anticipated.
Finding words to splash on the page
only starts our pulling together.
Sure, amidst the havoc of daily living,
I extract things worth recall and respect.
But the real work
(not corralling my thoughts)
grows in communal mind space.

For the unfamiliar, let me share a glimpse
of Oregon’s winter weather:
Bleak, bitter, finger-frosting cold,
churned out of heavy leaden peasoupers.
Weather aces claim one singular culprit
causes our frigid gloom—
the dastardly malefactor is…the Gulf of…

Ok, ok. Here’s an aside:
I moseyed on over here from Texas
where I absorbed a knee-jerk mental ‘fact’—
mi compadres, the Gulf is MEXICAN.
But here, in O-R, weather blusters about,
throwing itself south from the Gulf of…

Wait for it,
while my Texas mind switches gears
to the foreign Gulf of ALASKA.

In writing, I highlight humor,
if only a smidgeon,
that speaks to the wildness within,
Helps us remain whole
in a culture that instructs us
to never mind that.
Not anymore.
Still, I toss away weighty matters
and instead glitzify co-habitating
with the elements.
Despite the macrocosmic agenda
to snuff it out,
I pledge allegiance to normalcy.

This week, the OR coast
flips its weatherly switch.
The origins, no gulf,
but rather, paradise.
Tempests bolt across P. Ocean,
while Ms Misty Troposphere,
fiendishly thirsty,
sucks up water and bliss-bombs us
with warm, overgenerous splatters
from southern-most Hawaii.
Yup. Alaska, Hawaii and Oregon
make a trio of states united climatically.

My stories—some scream,
others whisper—
all arise motley and multilayered.
Personal myths made solid,
bricked with fears, doubts, dreams,
and courage.
Once mailed, tendrils of healing
and renewal sprout across USPS-land.
At this, something inside me
perks to life.
Bull’s eye!
Instantly, creativity bests turmoil.

Today, walking through the rain,
and not shivering,
I reach out with open palms,
Tickled by the earthbound
plop, plop, plops.
I laugh, pretending each wet missive
arrives special delivery
to me from Hawaii.
And now sitting on my porch
writing you,
A soft wind touches my face.
Certain it carries
the faint strumming of a ukelele,
I smile.

My marks on the page
give people no answers,
offer no certainties
in the sharing.
What arrives in the mail
proves little more
than a magnetic mist,
a momentary center of attention,
a distraction aimed
at the drawing out
from precious minds
imaginative delights
that clear debris
and inspire joy.

No matter if our winds
blow from north,
or south,
or follow a whirl of routes,
Going forward,
let’s hope we’re all showered
with blessings—tender drops—
Some big like mountains,
others just tiny sprinkles.
Maybe even a few
garnished with exotic
island melodies.

Eileen “ike” West, MA, is an international teacher and writer featured in Susan Smit’s Wise Women (NL, 2003) and Susan Taylor’s Sexual Radiance (US, 1998). Across decades, West’s essays liberally sprinkle magazines and other publications in the US, UK, and EU. Samples are available at ikewest.com. West’s first poetry collection, Whistler of Petty Crimes (2023), and her earlier novels, Away from Hannah’s Castle (US/NL, 2006) and Another Giant World (UK, 2018), are available through various and sundry outlets.

This poem appeared in What We Hold On To: Poems of Coping, Connection, and Carrying On — Winter 2026, published by The Chaos Section Poetry Project. We’ll be featuring each poem from the collection individually in the weeks ahead. You can read the full collection or download a free PDF of the chapbook here.