A musical reflection for Black History Month, honoring resilience, artistry, faith, innovation, and the enduring cultural imprint that continues to shape American life. Rooted in memory and carried forward in sound, this tribute looks back with gratitude and ahead with purpose. Before the marble roads and iron law,Before the eagle standard crossed the sea,There rose in mist and forest glen…

A rare Arctic visitor has been spotted perched on a Northampton rooftop, drawing quiet awe from neighbors and bird lovers alike. Likely journeying south in search of food, the Snowy Owl brings a touch of wild northern winter to familiar streets and fields. On a chimney crown in Northampton town,Where frost has stitched the fields in white,A traveler rests in feathered gown,

from the album How I Met Your Mother

from the album Compilation - Pioneer Valley Songs, part 2

from the album Compilation - Ancestral Songs of the Land

from the album Compilation - Some of My Favorites

A tribute to Stan Zdonik, a cornerstone of the Boston Bluegrass Union and the Joe Val Festival. From the halls of MIT to the judges' table, he built a community that sounds like home. We remember his kindness, his vision, and his love for the music. #Bluegrass #BBU #StanZdonik We gather where tunes lingerafter the chairs are folded,where rosin dust still floats…

A tribute to the grit and soul of Hampshire College. Even as the ledgers groan, the experiment breathes through every alum who refuses a clean goodbye. A legacy of risk, nerve, and the beautiful struggle of learning to fail alive. #HampshireCollege #PioneerValley #HigherEd Hampshire sits on rolling ground,Eight hundred acres, soft and sound,Where barns remember earnest schemesAnd hallways echo half-formed dreams.

Audius is a music streaming and sharing platform that puts power back into the hands of content creators.

The rhythmic beat of the lion dance brings a warmth to the downtown Amherst streets that cuts right through the February chill. Watching the community gather from the Common to the local storefronts reminds us that tradition is best kept when shared across every open doorway. #AmherstMA #LunarNewYear #PioneerValley On a winter day in Amherst town,When early dusk is settling down,

This poem honors the western Massachusetts Grand Colleen tradition as a living act of regional memory. Town by town, the Pioneer Valley sends its daughters forward to Holyoke, not for spectacle, but to carry continuity, dignity, and place into the Saint Patrick’s Day parade. It is a portrait of geography, community, and shared stewardship, where history walks beside the present.

This poem was written to honor Karen Brown’s lifetime of discipline, teaching, and courage in taekwondo, and the deep personal meaning of her eighth dan test in Korea. It reflects not only athletic mastery, but family, heritage, and the long arc of commitment that stretches across decades and across the ocean. This is a story about showing up again and again, even when the body protests, and about traditions that bind generations together.

A long-form poem inspired by Amherst’s Dawn Redwoods and their improbable journey from ancient forests to present-day shade trees. This piece reflects on deep time, community stewardship, and the quiet power of survival, rooted in specific places around Amherst. I sing the Dawn Redwood,and I sing Amherst that shelters it,and the long patience of the earth that forgot,

The Grand Colleen parade is a public celebration, but its story often begins in private moments of care and intention. This poem reflects on two students who chose history, stone, and lasting beauty over flash, and how those choices ripple outward into a city tradition. In Holyoke where brick and river meet,Where echoes of the mills still line the street,

Before refrigeration, winter was work. Ice harvesting shaped ponds, towns, and seasonal rhythms across the Valley, demanding patience, skill, and a deep understanding of risk. Reading about its return as a demonstration at WinterFest felt like an invitation to look closely at how labor and landscape once depended on each other. This poem sits with that history, not as nostalgia, but as recognition of a time when even cold had value and meaning.

This poem grew out of listening carefully to a public conversation about Hampshire College and the wider pressures facing American higher education. What stood out was not defensiveness or nostalgia, but steadiness, a confidence rooted in rebuilding, recommitment, and a belief that education should remain an active, unfinished process. Hampshire’s place within the Five College Consortium, alongside neighbors like University of Massachusetts Amherst, reflects a regional understanding that learning expands when it is shared rather than guarded.

This poem reflects on the story of Polly Cooper of the Oneida Nation, whose knowledge and generosity helped sustain Washington’s army during the winter at Valley Forge. It centers care, instruction, and Indigenous wisdom as forms of courage often overlooked in traditional histories. History likes its heroes armed,boots heavy with intention,but sometimes survival arrivescarried in a basket.

This poem is a love letter to the Montague Book Mill, a place where books, music, food, and the sound of moving water come together in quiet defiance of speed and algorithms. It reflects on decades of personal connection and the enduring joy of getting lost on purpose. By a river that refuses to hush,where the dam keeps time with a steady rush,

Some artworks do not try to explain the world. They try to hold it. The PeaceBirds Project, with its thousands of folded cranes and its invitation to gather, grieve, and create together, felt like that kind of work. This poem grew out of thinking about paper as witness, libraries as containers for unfinished histories, and the slow, deliberate acts that make solidarity visible.

This poem was inspired by the Lunar New Year parade moving through downtown Amherst, where traditional lion dance brings blessing, movement, and continuity to familiar streets. It reflects on how ritual briefly transforms everyday places, reminding a town that culture is something practiced, not archived. On a winter afternoon the town loosens its collar,February holding its breath just long enough.

The Pioneer Valley has always been good at holding layers of time. Mills become studios, armories become data corridors, rivers continue whether we name them or not. Reading about the quantum and AI infrastructure quietly taking shape here felt familiar, less like disruption and more like stewardship. This poem is part of my ongoing interest in how land, history, and emerging technology intersect, and how progress can arrive without erasing its roots.

This poem reflects on the quiet role shared meals and intimate rooms play in long relationships. Rather than focusing on spectacle or destination, it lingers on the ordinary places where love learns how to last. It connects loosely to my ongoing How I Met Your Mother series, not as a song, but as a reflection on how time, patience, and shared presence shape a life together.

This poem grows out of a real event in Ashfield, Massachusetts: a traditional Mishoon burn, where a dugout canoe is shaped by fire in the presence of community. It reflects on Indigenous stewardship, cultural renewal, and the patience required to let land and history speak for themselves. Though it carries echoes of my ongoing “songs for the land” work, this piece is written as poetry, not performance, meant to sit with the reader rather than move them along.

In Shelburne Falls the river keeps its own calendar.Spring announces itself before the leaves,before the town believes it.The Green River swells and speaks louder,a rough syllable rolling through open windows,water practicing its long memory on stone.When I lived nearby I learned to sleep inside that sound,the way you learn a friend's breathing,the way place becomes a body you trust.

YouTube video by Celticado