FIRST DONOR - NFCDS, INC.

We don't yet have our fundraising plan in place but this week The North Florida Center for Documentary Studies, Inc. received its first contribution and, along with her check, our contributor sent a note that read "This is not a final check. I intend to be a supporter."

This unsolicited contribution and the words accompanying it are both encouragement and inspiration to NFCDS's officers, Florence Van Arnam, Frank Cellon, and me. More soon on the fundraising; I think we can make it fun. Many thanks to you, First Donor; we appreciate the confidence you have placed in us.

scauthen
www.sudyecauthen.com
cauthen4196@earthlink.net

THE INTENT OF THIS BLOG:

The North Florida Center for Documentary Studies, Inc., its officers and friends are presently studying options for fundraising that will cover the work of the Center and get the next book out as soon as possible. Please visit HERE for further information. If you have suggestions regarding fundraising or would like to contribute, please write to us at cauthen4196@earthlink.net

Thank you for your interest in our efforts to document and celebrate North Florida's people and their relationships to the land.

(In the meantime, here's a moth sent this morning by my friend Jen Fone of Jacksonville, FL.)

sudyecauthen
www.sudyecauthen.com

THE NIGHT SKY

This photo comes from my neighbor, Robert Baxter, who shot it on his walk along the Suwannee this past weekend.

Lot 22
16 September 2008

Outside, a full moon, even fuller than last night; it looks that way. The moss draperies, the faraway hoot of the owl, the crochet of crickets, the stars,planets, both yellow and white: this is my original experience, the year I lived in the trailer here and cracked the window by my small, thin mattress each night so I could fall asleep hearing all that.

Just reprinted the poetry I wrote that year--1997--collected in the chapbook, ALONE, ON THE RIVER THIS YEAR. Here's a sample:

THE FIRST SWIM OF SUMMER

A ten-foot drop from this clay ledge.
Too narrow for alligators.
Too late, anyway, for their
sunning themselves.
The wiry weeds slides from my grasp, and I fall backward
into a sky of marbled gold, a chirring
of insects; the moon, a white broach
on the evening sky. I stand--
squishing my toes in the muck--
then toss myself backward again,
a plump needle pointing north-south,
brief compass in this world
of water moccasins, snakes
thicker than vines, insistent buzz
of mosquitoes, and lightning storms.

This sweet violence we call the world.


Michael Branch’s piece in ORION has inspired me to go back to what I loved in the first place, so tonight I went down and stretched out on the plastic lawn chair and counted stars until a mosquito zoomed in. I hope we have a hard freeze this winter. Otherwise, I should tie ribbons to the mosquitoes so I can see them coming.

JOIN US IN DOCUMENTING NORTH FLORIDA

"Tell me the landscape in which you live, and I will tell you who you are," says Jose Ortega y Gasset. Our North Florida Center for Documentary Studies, Inc., aims to record in writing and photographs the cultural strengths and beauty of our people and the landscape in which they live.