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KATHRYN STEWART MCDONALD - NEPHARIM AND THE RIDER

4/12/2020

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Picture
 Kathryn Stewart McDonald lived in Tunisia, Thailand, Italy, on Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands and surrounding Micronesian Islands as well as in Honolulu, Hawaii.  She has traveled Europe, spent time in Hong Kong and Taiwan and in several states across America. Her father was with the Diplomatic Corps United States Department of State USAID, and later with the US Dept of Interior. Her parents published tourist maps of Florida Keys, Chesapeake and Delmarva Maryland, Alaska, Arizona and New Mexico, Puerto Rico and Micronesia. 
      The family was very happy and made many friends. She attended or changed schools 13 times in 12 years. Despite this her friendships are stable including grade school buddies who later resurfaced in other countries with the US Embassy, she is best friends with people she knew in Coral Gables, Florida and Annapolis, Md. Every two years for three months she attended school in her grandparents hometown where her parents spent their home leave (vacation jargon at US Dept of State). 
     Kathryn's love of different cultures and languages was based on her exposure to the differences and similarities shared by people throughout the world.  She attended University of Houston, Texas State University and University of Texas at Austin. She has been a journalist for many years, in the USA and abroad. She worked also for a Native American lobbyist and is by some accounts 60 per cent Navajo, which is cool, she wants to be retested before being involved in The Daughters of The American Revolution Native American Chapter, if the DNA is duplicated she will, if not it is back to Clubhouse of Colonial Dames. 

"It is about what, not who you are, but whomever  you think you are, it doesn't make you better or worse than anyone else, what you do and how you treat people is who you are." 

Kathryn's pet peeves: Snobs, macaroni, and bigots
Kathryn's favorites:  Quiet people, shashimi, human rights advocacy
Hobby's : Community theater, rock opera, film maker
Ride: 19 Year old Honda 


Ex Man in her Life:     Yes.   He was sullen and domineering.

New Man in her Life:  Yes.  Still waiting and celibate until Marcus returns from military service.

Previous  Publications 
Phosphene, Aileron, Blackburg Press, Haiku Zashi Zoe, Harbinger Asylum, Gryphon, Fla. State University,
George Washington University Press,  Re Artes Liberales, and others,
 Her  professors of poetry were David Wevill and Al Goldbarth at University
of Texas, Dr. McLauren at University of Houston

  Nepharim  and The Rider

The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. ” (Genesis 6:1–4, ESV) ​
​Man from elsewhere riding the roads 
along ridges rugged metamorphic rock
going somewhere,  gripping the 
wheel, turning trying to turn 
the world around, traveling hair pin
curves the edge each crevice a tight
rope, he drives  mountain 
after mountain another
and another following the spinal
cord of  convergent tectonic shifts
mountains from millennials past,
  Rider 
racing, racing night after night to rediscover
a caldron of  the new milnial
53 miles from middle of nowhere
interstate, corridor infrequently
explored , no cell service,
State Police describe clan of
mountain people, hunters,
lumberjacks, small farms,
workers in sawmills, linemen
gas or gas and electric company, 
river guides, fishermen
Meager lives, meaningful lives, 
mostly overlooked lives, lives
merciful to others, lives where
people loved, lives though those alive
mutated, maimed, mangled,
marred now deformed as the
ridges of the metamorphic
 Allegheny cliffs, 

Survivors of the village's
 hospitality extended to
a stranger ,  thought they
themselves considered their offering
paltry, inconsequential, insubstantial
people as they feel they are perceived
 by  others The Rider and others saw
fruitful, content, industrious
peaceful, loving, satisfied
simple sincere, sanctified 
 Now judged by the outside
world, what were they, oh,
("Sure, trying to make
some money,  they deserved it" or  
"Lucky it went down out there ,
not here")

Where one world affluence matters more
than another, where  in one world,  old way of life, 
won't fit  with the norm, now  no matter -erased
absent 
extinct 
ended
not by boulder, avalanche
not  disease or drought by penitent

The wipers chant 
a language he does not know
the blades echoe

a mechanical heartbeat
the only sound on this
road 

Here , the marker, man stops,
opens  window, cold mountain
air, snow blowing on his face , his 
face in the mirror the color of the
ash on corpses in the photo
On the dash the page with a sketch


  The  penitent one who fed on blood leaving
carnage among cottages in poor
secluded towns, considered 
by society unmeritorious  of 
time, of scrutiny or concern

Man turns on radio
static, crackles, 
descending into 
snow, as if ashes of the dead
leading him 
destination unknown
fugitives hideout
a cabin, a barn, on an
 unmapped road 
a turnaround, perhaps
it must  always be night, this
forray, he parks the resentful vehicle
turns off his lights
opens the door ,a flashlight, 
cuts branches,covers his jeep

At daybreak he will
explore ,there below  him a shack
pale yellow light -should he wait, return 
to the road, is his igloo camo good, will it keep?
As he awaits the dawn other memories drift 
through his half sleep and other nights when 
alone he explored a city street rumor held the fugitives
had friends to meet, instead the house they planned to rob
housed a family of four with many riches inside to keep
The woman , when he opened the door and wanted as  bride when he saw her he 
knew she would never lie.
would leave behind
and will she one day be a woman a 
good man left behind, will she
die in a forest. a wasteland of 
gray and white under a blue sky
away from the ocean a sapphire
blue under  sun all the time
a coastline soft with sand
sand the color of snow, sometimes

She will love him until the end of time.
He saved her family
When the men came in 
through an open window
with a smoke bomb
then the open door 
they thundered in 
"What you in here for"
"Damm they are all inside
get what you can, "
Then "Shut up or die"

He came to the door,
"If you are hiding these men
I have a warrant,  stand back,"
They were not hiding the penitent
For hours the club had been inside
Rider  saw her father
crawling on the floor, her mother
collapsed, cancer  patient, she was
observed by a club who
meanwhile were searching for drugs
none they wanted, apparently, 
medications cast aside with
more cursing, "What's this for?" in his hand
a blood pressure cure.

Justice as invaders saw the man they began 
to 
shake,  she barely remembers
the next moments did pass
she fell in love with his shin, 
his shin conquered all of their jin.

Her family consider him as
God Sent.


Her love whorls between
obelisks of petrified
frozen firs and Norwegian Pine
Her love flows through meandering 
streams, Her loves' metamorphosis
into bedrock. He moves mountains
A General now, he keeps his Riders
deep in darkness where he follows
their drive vigilant eternally over the
good he is sworn to keep. He treads
softly in his home, his world, and 
that is all about him anyone has known
The Riders he guides to save people 
they stand side by side.



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