One Year of Horizons!

 December 1, 2024:

Celebrating one year of Horizons!!! 

Horizons is now one year old! And to celebrate this anniversary, if you PM me, I will offer the paperback book for $15 or $18 with shipping. This is available for one month (December 2024).

Winner of the 2024 Nebraska Book Award

(Design Honor Category)

AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK AND AUDIOBOOK!!

SEE BELOW TO ORDER!!!!

Embark on a captivating journey through the vibrant world of living soil, where new horizons await under the very ground we tread and the tapestry of human experience unfolds.

This is an invitation to delve deep into the bonds of family, to explore identity and the spectacular essence of beauty, and to discover the marvels of Mother Nature's cyclical dance. Horizons pays homage to the richness of soil, a precious nonrenewable resource, blending the art of poetry with the wonders of science and everyday life.

So come join us on this expedition, those of you from all walks of life, starting from the bedrock of soil and venturing forth until we reach the breaking of the earth, to bask in the sun.

Order Here:

Barnes & Noble (paperback & audiobook)

Amazon (paperback, ebook, audiobook)

Target (paperback)

**Of course, the best way to order a paperback (and get a signed copy) is through the author at jpaschold@gmail.com or come to a reading ($18 + postage)**

See below for schedule

Other Places to Purchase the paperback Horizons and support local owners:

Francie & Finch Bookstore, Downtown: 130 S. 13 Street, Lincoln, NE 68508

Norfolk Arts Center, 305 N. 5th Street, Norfolk, NE 68701

Your Forte, 415 Chestnut St, Atlantic, IA 50022

***AUDIOBOOK INFORMATION ****
If you need or prefer this version...HERE ARE ALL THE WAYS TO ORDER!

This is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Spotify, Libby, and pretty much everywhere audiobooks are sold.  Here are some links to help you out:

Google Play

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

Libro

Storytel

Author Events:

• Tuesday, December 3, 2024; 6:30 PM @ FREE online through Nebraska Poetry Society

Advice to a Young Person: a poem

 Having recently been judged for who I am, on a brief single meeting, based on labels and closed minds and prejudices, when I thought we had made a connection--I am processing this news. Rather than post the poetry that is coming out of this pondering, I will post this poem about my self--giving advice to potentially a younger version of me. Or to anyone who needs to hear it. 

Please, in this world of anger, hurt, tumult, and uncertainty, be kind to each other. Learn to find our commonalities, our qualities of goodness, the wonder that surrounds us.  There is a universe full of love out there, if we choose to share it. 

Advice to a Young Person

Who am I to give you advice?

Having fallen down the stairs
a dozen times,
not from some inept dance step
gone wrong

but a mismanagement
of medication,

a build-up of toxicity
from becoming sober

so my brain
and doctor didn’t know how to
handle me:

I am now
one mis-wired soul
held together by hope and
the few memories that remain.

What do I recommend for life?

 Find a doctor with whom you are
comfortable,

that listens to you,
to whom you can sing all your problems
so your anxiety doesn’t play

like a fiddle
and you are in harmony with

your body.

 Go to the dentist so your teeth
don’t jiggle like an un-played piano,
keys loose,

wires out of tune,
melody irretrievably lost.

Find someone or something to love
full-bodied

and do it proudly,
whose care and respect for you
is enduring and endearing.

Cuddle and hug daily.

Listen to the natural world;
let it surround you with serenity.

Repair yourself;

allow others to aid

in that mending;
allow them time to mold themselves

anew

as well.

 You are not who you were,
            but who you have become.

 Be the story-teller of your own song.

Be original and assertively authentic,
your voice sonorific enough to be heard,

whether it twangy or soothing,
sonorous or off-beat,

country or city,
bizarre or sad or modern or antique.

Be you, for we are all broken,

and yes,
you are enough.

 

 Tansy Julie the Soaring Eagle Paschold
11.6.24

The Stance on Holding Love: a poem

 The Stance on Holding Love:

I Know if You Were Here

 --to Lyle

 

Two days ago on my walk at work,
alongside the county road lay a raccoon,
body so fresh I wanted to reach out
and touch its nose and I know
if you were here you would have been
as intrigued as I in the small leathery
snout and tiny hands, still outstretched,
and we would create some story to go along
with its upturned belly and shortened life.

 

When I got home, the air so dry
it smelled of newly shed pencil shavings,
my roommate had gotten rid of a snake
she trapped in our basement—
her fear of this harmless garter
so severe she screamed beforehand—
and I know if you were here, you would
have examined each stripe and the
forked tongue and scales before
taking it back outside.

 

Tonight I started watching Life On Our Planet
on Netflix as you suggested, and I know
if you were here we would be enamored
with each fact and creature, and have to stop
the program to have conversations about
what we were learning.

 

Later on my way out of town I had to
slow down on the highway to let a coyote
finish crossing the road. He planted
his paws and straightened his legs
in such a stance, head bowed, that it
seemed he was thanking me for waiting,
for saving him. I know if you were here,
you would appreciate that.

 

Nora Rose Tomas says that to love something
means that you can’t quite hold it, and I know
now that you are an adult
I can no longer hold you here, keep you
from moving out on your own. Though my home
is now your permanent residence,
your room usually remains empty as you are
out exploring the world. But I also know
the heart has many rooms,
and there is a space in mine where I
still hold you, forever in my love.

 

Tansy Julie the Soaring Eagle Paschold

10.4.24

A True Story in August Air

 

A True Story in Cool August Air:

not the aubade I wanted to write

 --for E.L.

 

It is not yet dawn.
I wake up crying
and wander outside
in the near darkness.
I want this to be your aubade,
a morning song leaving
cool lips in the sunrise.
But under a porch light
where no moths gather,
a deep seated saudade falls
like a curtain over the scene,
this longing in your absence
a melancholy I fear will not end.
I can’t escape the possibility
it was meant to end this way,
that I was meant to stay alone,
that I did something
to make you disappear
this time never to return.
Or that I should have showed up
at your house and
taken you in my arms,
kissed each rugged worn finger
that night you were sick
from heat exhaustion
or that night you said you
were fine but your thoughts
really weren’t.
I’m supposed to write a happy
ending where I walk out of here
resolved to move on but when I
Trust God and Wait
what am I waiting for? Dunno, but how
is certain: slowly. I’ve always
run head-on and fully towards
what I loved too far and too fast,
and I fear that’s what happened
here. Your hands never got enough
attention. I just wanted to hold them.
Now they’re on the list of what I’ve
lost. Over-loved and lost, but how
do you measure love? I love you
more abundantly than the tomatoes
in my garden this year; I love you
more serendipitously than the
volunteer trees I’ve gathered
in pots and around the yard for you
that you may never come retrieve;
my love for you is taller than the
sunflowers bending over my shed
in the backyard, their brown and yellow
faces watching me now with a
certain sorrow. They must be
thinking, poor human.
I only wanted to be your friend.
When will there be a time I
cease thinking of you? Perhaps when
I look out at the porch light,
see the moths again, and think,
so this is the famous happiness
I’ve heard so much about.

by Tansy Julie the Soaring Eagle Paschold

8.13.24

after Bob Hicok’s “True Story”