Hi! Some of my Books are now published on Amazon!

Here is my website to give you more information on my books and the different genres I enjoy.
wiseowlpro.wix.com/aimhighbooksann

Here are the Titles. I hope you'll explore some of them of interest to you

Spiritual/Inspirational    Non Fiction

Spiritual Help in An Ailing World  By Ann Hughes  Amazon

Too many have given up a spiritual foundation in their homes and it is reeking havoc on our Society. A return to strong morals and spiritual values is the much needed remedy. Find ways to find purpose and meaning in life again.

How to Help Your Kids in a Troubled World By Ann Hughes Amazon
Families are in crisis today. Parents and children need some support and guidance to make their families strong again. Help your children be happy and healthy in body mind and spirit and feel successful in their lives.

Children's Books

The Rainbow World  By Andrea Hughes  Amazon

Teach your children to love and respect all the races and cultures in the world

Wise Ways  By Andrea Hughes Amazon

A wise wizard teaches some young people secrets to having a healthy world through Help, Hope, Healing and Harmony

Poetry and other Collections

Connections  by Ann Hughes  Amazon
We are all connected to each other in different ways. Explore some of those connections
A collection of  Short Stories and Essays

Slipping Through Time  by Ann Hughes  Amazon
A collection of poetry

Our Neighbors

Our Neighbors

They don't build tunnels anywhere along the north
Few wish to escape to colder country.
There are only a few roads along that endless border,
all have strict guard houses at the dividing line.
They don't tolerate illegal entry.
You will be thrown out within days.
A civilized land,
they take care of their sick,
their poor.
Mother's are valued.
a monthly supplement insures they can stay home,
raise their babies until school.
Hardy, hardworking souls,
crime is much lower up north.
People work to stay warm,
not steal from their neighbors.
We could learn some things from our Canadian countrymen.


If you have committed a crime,
hopeful escape is Mexico,
the lawless land where police can be bribed.
If they want your house,
your car, your boat,
they take it.
mother's pander their young for pennies,
begging an occupation.
They teach them to hold out their hand at two
Some just learning their first words know
"Hey Lady" and give "chicklets" for dimes or quarters,
maybe even a dollar.
Long tunnels are scraped out in border towns,
wishing to escape to the "Land of Eldorado",
where milk and gold flow like honey.
Life is warm.
The climate attracts the"Canucks" that winter there.
People can make their homes out of big boxes
like a turtle if need be.
Tequila and drugs flow like water,
"to kill ya" might kill ya!
Life is cheep.
Drug cartels and illegals swarm the borders,
push their way through in mobs at dusk.
Stark skeletons scatter the trail along the Rio Grande.
Those that didn't make it.

True Beauty is in the Heart

Accepted for publication in "Sage Woman"

       What makes someone beautiful is the light in their eyes and the depth of their souls.  It emanates from their heart and shines through any outer disguise.  Sometimes being blessed with outward beauty can be a curse because  that is all people look at instead of searching deeper to see who a person really is.  There are all kinds of beauty in the world. Some people are ugly both inside and outside. Some people are beautiful both inside and out.  I have known people that are beautiful on the outside but do such ugly acts that they become ugly people.  Others I have known were very homely people but their warmth and kindness have erased any outward appearance and they have become truly beautiful.

     When I was in college, I met a girl from a small country town.  She had crooked teeth and was rather homely. She spoke with a country hick accent and pronounced words differently than I had ever heard others speak them. Her clothes were out of date and had a funny old fashioned style to them.  I thought she was really odd and yet she was always very friendly and outgoing.  After a while I got so I enjoyed her more and more.  We started working together in Sunday School with young children and became good friends.

     It is true that often people become beautiful as we get to know them.  She found out that I was really hoping to finish college because I had only a couple of quarters left but I had a new baby and couldn't afford a sitter.  She told me she wanted to help me and to bring my son over when I needed to go to class. I offered to pay her but she said no, that she wanted to do this for me.  It was such a kind and unselfish act.  Though we have lost touch, she is still a beautiful person in my eyes.  A beauty that has lasted through time.

      Once I was vacationing at a resort in Idaho, I noticed a young attractive couple having fun, laughing and cuddling in the hot tub.  I remember thinking how in love they seemed. I moved my lounge chair to a different angle to catch the sun rays better.  It was then I noticed that the other half of the man's face was disfigured with a dark purple birthmark.  It had some skin hanging down in an unnatural way. His girlfriend was oblivious to it, kissing and hugging him like she wasn't even aware of his birthmark.  It inspired me to look beyond the outer shell of a person and move into their soul. .

     One night I met a man in a dance club. He was very handsome but I noticed he had some scars on one side of his face.  I asked him what had happened and he told me he had been hit by a car when he was fifteen.  He didn't know that I was very depressed that night. I was  in deep despair and feeling suicidal.  I had been through a difficult divorce and had fallen in love with a man who was married but had told me he was unhappy and was leaving her.   As time went on I realized he was playing us both along as well as a couple of other women. It completely broke my heart being betrayed by two men, him and my ex-husband and I was wary of ever trusting a man again.  I didn't trust this man, yet something about his scars made me feel close to him.  We were both scarred in a certain way. It inspired a poem.

                                 Crippled

              We're both crippled you and I

              We both suffered the tragedy of terrible accidents

              We see on your face what cruel fate dealt you

               Such a handsome face to be marred by a sudden wrong move

               My face is beautiful

               I show no scars

               But the wounds around my heart

               No one would want to look upon

     Over time we fell in love and I eventually married this man.  He had a kindness, sensitivity, and sense of humor that erased any scars in my eyes. Sometimes beauty has to be stripped of it's disguises to find the real thing, like a diamond in the rough.  Beauty is also often like a rosebud and it has to open up so we can look deep inside to see its true beauty.

The Woman in the Black Hat

The Woman In the Black Hat

She stood away from the rest of the funeral party at the cemetery, the wide brimmed black hat a stark statement against the bright green of the lawn. The saucer on the brim of the hat hid her face in it’s shadows. She wore a red and black chiffon dress with a black silk sash that moved gently when the wind blew as if waving goodbye.

No one seemed to know her and no one spoke to her. She looked to be in her late twenties or early thirties. She had a handkerchief in her hand that she occasionally dabbed her eyes with. Just before the graveside service ended, she left suddenly so no one was able to speak to her or introduce themselves. Yet, she had left a an indelible mark in everyone's memory standing there alone.

It wasn’t until two weeks later when Dave and his sister Katy were going through their father’s things and cleaning out his apartment that the question of her identity came up again when they found a stack of letters in their father’s bureau drawer.

“I wonder who these letters are from?” Katy said leafing through them with her thumb. “You don’t think daddy was carrying on a romance with someone in his seventies do you? Do you think we should read them or just burn them?” Katy asked.

They looked at each other and their eyes had a mixture of curiosity and sadness.

“What the Hell,” said Dave. “Why don’t you read one and see what it says.”

Kathy walked over to her dad’s favorite rocker, turned on the lamp, sat down, and took the top letter off the pile. Opening it she read:

September 11, l993

My Dearest  Bob,

It is very difficult for me to express what you have come to mean to me these past three years. I never thought I would recover from the heartaches I have had to endure.

Your friendship will stand strongly in my mind as long as I live. I never thought I would be able to say these words again but I can honestly say that I love you.

Thank you for your endearing and enduring presence.

Always,

Alexandra 

Neither Katy or Dave spoke for a moment after she finished. Finally Katy broke the silence.

“This was written just two months before daddy died. Have you ever heard him mention an Alexandra?” Dave shook his head.

“What did I tell you, always a way with the ladies.”

“You’re right, dad always seemed to carry on lives that no one knew anything about. Who do you think Alexandra was?”

Dave paused thinking.

“Do you think it possibly could have been that woman in the black hat at the cemetary that no one seemed to know?”

“Maybe so,” Katy nodded.

“So are we going to finish reading them or should we get rid of them and keep dad’s mysterious life a mystery?”

Dave was sitting on the not so white and weathered nagahyde couch that his father had pulled out every night to sleep on. His father had led a simple life. He’d lived in a small studio right downtown so he could walk anywhere he needed to go. The apartment was furnished very simply. There was a vase with a couple of fake red and white Fushias resting on the dresser. A chess set sat under the window and there was a small television in the corner. He didn’t have a phone and used a pay phone that was downstairs in the apartment building when he wanted to call someone. He didn’t own a car either. He walked or occasionally caught a cab or bus if he needed to go very far. He had remained single ever since he and their mother hd divorced more than thirty years before. Dave and Katy agreed that apparently their father had had some romances they knew nothing about.

Katy sat in the rocking chair rocking a little and staring at the bundle of letters. 

“I don’t know, I’d like to know more about Alexandra and for that matter, more about our dad. What about you?”

“Yeah, I would too. I think he was a bit of a mystery to both of us.”

“Okay, we’ll take turns reading them to each other. That way we’ll be partners in crime and dad will have to be mad at both of us if he decides to get mad on the other side.” They both chuckled a little uncomfortably.

Dave opened the next letter.

“The date says it is June 21, l989. These don’t seem to be in chronological order.”

“Oh well, we’ll read them as they come. Hopefully we’ll try to make some sense out of them. “

Dave read the next letter.

June 21, l989

Dear Bob,

How nice of you to come over and introduce yourself. It was so helpful of you to give me a hand with all those big boxes. It is true “Two heads are better than one,” and “Four arms are better than two!” I just wanted to thank you again for being such a friendly and helpful neighbor.

Always,

Alexandra

“This must have been when they first met.” Dave looked at Katy and she nodded.

“I bet she was that woman he told us moved in the apartment directly across the building from him. She had bought two aparments as a condo and completey remodeled them. She obviously had some money. Dad’s apartment could look right into the window of her kitchen. I remember he told me about her moving in and redoing the apartments. Well, let’s read on.”

Dave handed Katy the next letter:

July 23, 1989

Dear Bob,

Could you please stop over this evening and help me with some curtain rods? The doctor said I’m not suppose to strain or climb up on anything. I would really appreciate it. I would like to invite you to dinner for your trouble. Thank you so much for your help

Alexandra

“That was short and sweet. I wonder why she can’t strain herself?”

“Well, let’s read on, maybe we’ll find out,”said Katy.

It was late when Dave and Katy started to read the letters but they continued reading them on into the night. They become so interested in finding out about Alexandra and part of their father’s life they had not known about before, they couldn’t put the letters down. Katy was trying to figure why she wrote letters to him if she lived right across the building.

“I guess maybe she wrote him letters because he didn’t have a phone.”

“Yah, that could explain them.”

Katy read the next letter.

August 29, 1990

Dear Bob,

Well you finally got to meet “The father of my baby”. I’m sure he didn’t make much of an impression rushing off like he did. He would have died if I’d introduced him as such. Jack has some nice qualities but does some other things that are so exasperating I can barely stand to be in his presence. I feel really lonely tonight. Would you like to stop over for coffee and a little company. Maybe we can play some chess. I am so glad to have you as a friend.

Always,

Alexandra

“Well, that explains it. She was pregnant!”

“Yep!”

Katy quickly opened the next letter

September 12, l989

Dear Bob,

Could you by chance stop over tonight. Jack has disappointed me again and I’m having a very difficult time coping. He promised to stop by and see the apartment and how I was getting along and then he called and said something had come up and he couldn’t come. I had made a nice dinner and had everything ready. He said his wife had demanded he accompany her to the premier of a film in Part City for the film festival opening. Of course, he professed his undying love and devotion to me, as always, his favorite line when he is in trouble and making excuses.

I’ve been feeling a lot of cramping and I’m afraid I might lose the baby only being five months along. I want this baby so much. It is so heart breaking to feel so alone in this wish. Jack told me he planned to support the baby and me financially in anything we might need. He also told me, that the only communication we could have would be when he initiated it.

When he found out I was pregnant and we parted, he gave me a generous sum and told me to do whatever I wanted to with it. “Hush money” I suppose. He told me to remodel a place in Salt Lake and that could be our “secret retreat and getaway” place. Since moving to Salt Lake, I’m lucky if Jack squeezes me in a couple of times a month. I’m sorry to bother you and burden you with this Bob, but I just have to talk to someone about it. Sometimes I feel like I’m going mad.

I hope to see you soon! Maybe we could have the dinner I prepared together.

Sincerely,

Alexandra.

Dave looked disgusted.

"Sounds like the father was a real jerk!”

“Sure does.” Dave agreed.

Katy quickly opened the next letter.

November 17, 1989

Dear Bob,

I feel like I’m having a nervous breakdown. I don’t know if I will be able to carry this baby to term. Could you please come over, I have nowhere else to turn. I was with Jack last weekend and got so attached but now he is giving me the cold shoulder again and another excuse why he can’t come in to see me. He told me he doesn’t want me under any circustances to show myself in Park City until after the baby is born. He does not want anyone in Park City or especially his wife to know anuthing about this pregnancy. I guess he feels he has too much to lose. He told me if his wife or any of his friends had any idea, it could jeopardize everything as far as his financial position. Apparently he and his wife are not only in bed in marriage but in business as well. Sometimes it just seems so unfair. Since moving to Salt Lake I’m lucky if I see Jack once a month and it is just not enough to sustain me. I’m sorry to pour my heart out to you like this Bob, but I just have to talk to someone. Sometimes I feel like I’m going crazy with loneliness and having to deal with this all by myself. Thank you for listening.Your friendship and confidence has come to mean so much to me.   

You are my friend forever,

Alexandra

Katy had tears in her eyes as she read this letter.

“Wow, that’s tough! I know how abandoned she feels. I felt the same way when Todd left me.”

Dave nodded.

“I know, that was a really tough time.”

They read a few more letters and then finally came to the last letter in the stack.

Dave read it.

Decemer 7, 1990

My dearest Bob, will you marry me?  I have grown to love you so much! Having you there holding my hand as I delivered my precious baby girl was a gift I can never repay. I am resigned that my life with Jack is over. I really don’t want him to have anything to do with my beautiful daughter. Would you mind being Amanda’s surrogate dad? I think you would make a fabulous one!

My undying love always

Alexandra

Dave had a tear in his eye this time as he read the letter.

“I guess our dad was a more loving guy than I thought he was. Here all these years years I thought he was pretty much a useless alcoholic but these letters reveal a person I never really knew.

“Oh I knew daddy had a big heart. He showed me his big heart countless times as I struggled to raise my three girls alone. I guess there was more to our dad  though than than I even knew.”

“Yep, both of our eyes have been opened about dad tonight!”

 

Poetry - Part 2 - Poetry Slipping Through Time

Living

An Adult

This Place in Space

This world

This place in space

Intangibly real

Unreal     misplaced

Molded    unfolded

Surrounded with air

Life forms exist in a mutable snare

Changes arrange us in ever new paths

Cages entrap us in fourth and in halves

We’re taken down to unfathomable depths

Only to surface and catch a few breaths

Unconsciously conscious we move through the maze

An unfocused blur

We grope through the haze

Yet sometimes I wonder if we haven’t a place

Are we part of the cosmos

Have some meaning in space

                                                                       

Burb Blues

There’s got to be more than babies and bottles

Four bedroom ramblers and two car garages

There got to be more than trips to the health club

P.T.A., league games and freeway barrages

There’s got to be more than tennis and bridge

Who left their husband, who built on the ridge

Somewhere there’s palaces, artists, enchantment

Culture and elegance for my heart’s encampment

Somewhere, there’s poetry, playwrights, and dancing

Harpists, and flautists just right for romancing

Somewhere there’s substance and real conversation

And poetry that stimulates the mind’s transportation

Somewhere in this world there has got to be more

Than the girls down the street and the man at the door

Creating Karma

It always seems so clear to me the path that should be taken

It always shocks my soul to see the path some have forsaken

Cold and cruel and heartless ways are the path they’ve woven

Wicked, mean, and harmful ways are the path they’ve chosen

It always seems so clear to me and yet they choose another

The one that hurts and makes it worse is how they treat their brother

The Healer

Oh Sea
Take me away with you
to another place
another time
Reach out with your great arms
and hold me
As your tide draws back into itself
take my bruised heart with you
take away the alone ness
the heartache
the grief 
that I have heaped up 
inside myself
You have been my friend
Companion
And great healer so often
So once again
I come to you
Caress me with your motion 
Heal me with your pounding surf
Wash me clean again

Mood Swings

Why am I so high and yet so low

So far and yet so near

So up and yet so down

Confused and yet so clear

Contradictions

                                   

Does it sometimes seem

That white is black and black is white

                                    Does it sometimes seem

That right is wrong and wrong is right

                                    Does it sometimes seem

That dim is bright and bright is dim

Does it sometimes seem

            You win you lose, you lose you win

Does it sometimes seem

That rich is poor and poor is rich

Does it sometimes seem

            The witch is a saint the saint’s a witch

Birth Place

Birds of the morning burst barriers of sleep

Open the heart of budding spring

Winter’s dormant slumber breaks the chrysalis of death

Life reincarnates again

Sea Dweller

I don’t dwell by the sea

But the sea dwells in me

Though it moves far way

I feel it each day

I watch the moon

And my spirit communes

With the sea on a shore

Near a long distant moor

I have gifts from the sea

                              That whisper to me

             A long ago song

      I listen and long

To be there where the sea

Can wash over me

            And caress my soul

With its gentle hello

     Where the sea mists and the salty damp spray

            Envelop the ships as they drift on the bay

                             Where the fog horn moans a deep haunting call

                                   And the sea birds cry as they lift and fall

The Last Rose

Hardy it stays longer than the rest

Browned on the edges from chilly October nights

Still a deep rose blush is enclosed inside it’s petals

Wanting to burst forth but not receiving enough warmth

Enough sun to reach it’s fullness

It’s unfolding

No one will ever know how exquisite

That rose might have been because it got to chilly

It grew to late in the season

And before it could bloom

It died on the vine

My Heart

My heart has to wander

Meander

                                      and saunter

Along coastlines and shores

                                And boats in the harbors

My heart has to linger

   and savor

                          and finger

The sands at the sea sides

                                the shells in the riptides

My heart has to quiver

      and hover

                           and shiver

In awe and wonder

                                   at lightning and thunder

My heart has to wander

     meander

                                  and saunter

Through avenues and Burroughs

                             and art space and book stores

My heart has to skip

            and gallop

                        and canter

Through fields full of wild flowers

                                  and hear the birds banter

My heart has to wander

                             and wonder

                                         and ponder

At the meaning of life

        and death

                                               and beyond here

The    Still      nesssssssss

When I am unable to look at the images of the world

It’s madness threatening to overtake me

I go to

The            still      nesssssssssss

There I see God’s working

And know that a higher power is still in charge

The          still     nessssssssss

Of a hilltop overlooking the world

I hear angel voices whisper in the wind

That all is well

The             still       nesssssssssss

After a snowstorm

Everything coated with soft white lace

The air fresh after washing the world of all it’s psychic debris

The white gloves on the arms of the trees hold me in a calm embrace

         The                  still                nessssssssssss                               

Of a starry moon-filled night I become one with the infinity of space

No longer concerned about the madness of this life

It doesn’t really matter in the big picture of the progress of the universe

The                       still                       nessssssssssss

Gives me hope, peace, and an abiding        calmnesssssssss

Treasure Chest

Light filters through golden slivers

It is the hour between dusk and dark

Burnt umber trunks slither through gold doubloons

Ruby oak leaves sparkle in the light

Red, green, silver maples glimmer

In the vespers of afterglow

Citrine and topaz fires flame brush and bush

Emerald green leaves turned crimson shine

Amidst the crystal air

The jeweled facets of Autumn’s glory

Enclose me

Walking With The River

Walking with the river

In the evening vesper glow

Walking with the current

Going with the flow

A gentle breeze surrounds me

Downy ducklings drift along

Walking with the river

I hear the rivers song

Calming and soothing

It brings comfort to my soul

Walking with the river

Letting everything else just go

The river's my companion

quiet and still

Walking with the river

Is the way I love to feel

Why We Keep Horses

They stand as sentinels shining in the sun,

the curves of their muscles streamlined for speed.

They bring a calm as they graze in the pastoral pasture,

a simple reverie that soothes our souls.

They are patient and kind,

help us simplify,

don’t require much,

just a few pats on the head,

a cheerful hello,

some hay,

An apple from the tree.

They have existed for eons,

much longer than we humans.

They have been our horse power

through long journeys,wars, mail, and stagecoaches.

Now they are just our large pets.

We don’t ride anymore.

We love, groom, and brush them,

Trim their long roped manes,

Curry their soft satin fur.

Somehow they know when we are in trouble

and heal us with their strength,

just by standing in their presence.

They still give back

with their horsepower.

*We - My husband and I

Ocean Medicine

Heads bob like birds on a platinum sea.

They wait for the perfect wave.

From the top of the cliff I glide with pelicans

wind currents catching my hair.

Gulls soar,

free fall,

then lift,

freedom in their flight.

With a bird’s view I watch the changes

clouds merging and shifting above me.

A ribbon of silver cuts through shining glass.

The sun a spotlight on the water

moving away

away

away

until it disappears

in an endless ocean.

My Drum

My drum was so different from other’s drums.

Drum circles drew me, mine had a foreign moan

It had a unique timbre and tone.

Even my family could not comprehend me

Sometimes  like an orphan, so alone.

My drum was so different from other’s drums.

 I felt things others didn’t feel

Voices that spoke to me weren’t my own,

They  had a distinct timbre and tone.

Strange visions seem to appear to me

Was I born with a call, psychic gifts can’t disown,

My drum was so different from other’s drums.

My  isolation  like a lone leaf at sea.

Always looking for my own true home.

My drum was so different from other’s drums.

It  had an unusual timbre and tone

Birthdays

Each year of survival on the planet deserves a pat on the back.

It marks an accumulation of time,

the scars of experience,

the tests of endurance,

Some birthdays are like bright balloons 
lifting through sapphire blue skies,

a son’s return from the military,

a  granddaughter’s birth,

a birds melody as spring returns.

Other birthdays are like skinned knees,

a breakup with a high school sweetheart,

a wife’s funeral succumbing to cancer,

a  grandson’s diagnoses of childhood diabetes.

Birthdays are the poignant reminder 
of the calm or troubled waters of life.