My aunt gave me the sea in a book big as me. Curled in a chair, I wandered tidal pools despite the Christmas chill held hermit crabs and starfish inhaled salt air. I walked that book’s pages with childlike devotion an eight-year-old explorer baby beach comber. Robert Frost’s snow drifted into my 4th… Read More GIFTS
we’re not artists in all places, times…… Read More ARTISTS
Who named the adverb bastard child? Is this because it fails to stand alone, leans always on another for meaning so much like us at our worst (and best) we shun them? In the time when fans spoke quietly before the days of scream and riot, we stood with Dylan after a concert behind the… Read More BOB’S ADVERB
Thirty years but if one’s lit nearby the scent draws me like a child to brownies. Worse to quit than bread or chocolate beer on a hot day wine as I cook. They told me “Place old butts in a jar, take a deep whiff if you weaken” – that jar smelled of every man… Read More CIGARETTES
It’s us we dust not some distant rabbit fluff or forgotten flake of stranger. Our very mitochondria’s cast off about the sofa, table, chair our entire lair’s alive with microscopic leavings. It’s our breadcrumb trail back to time remembered or forgot. Small bits of days from childhood – nights of watching tiny satellites pass overhead-… Read More DUSTING
STILL Five a.m. The old house is still but for the hum of interstate. My ancient Scottie drowses on the bed. The puppy rests on pillows at its head. Elsa sleeps, blanket in hand, upstairs in her four poster. Her parents down the hall sleep on foam. The Airedale and poodle, little dog and big… Read More STILL
The way the light falls into my bathroom each morning in summer is known to me deeply like my name. I know it better than how to grow old retire or navigate social security. Its soft presence from the east, gently, predictably lifts me into the day. It’s only absent in storm but then still… Read More KNOWING THE LIGHT
No laughter resonates like that of women beyond need of make-up and reach of girdles. Ladies for whom wrinkles rank in importance well below the dog’s recovery from Lyme disease and driving the neighbor to dialysis. No humor is quite so funny as old friends’ jibes about each other’s foibles and failings or jests about… Read More LONG LAUGHTER
Father would quiz me at the dinner table on my academic failings. “What’s the capital of Wisconsin?” he’d inquire as I mixed peas into my mashed potatoes. “Where’s Patagonia?” he’d demand as I twirled spaghetti onto my fork. “Spell squirrel.” he’d order as I lifted a forkful of pot roast to my lips. My mind… Read More SPELLING LESSONS
Midnight wings unfurl into updrafts of spirit. Does seed fear the ground? Waves the sea? A dog barks in a mountain village as color falls from treasured face. What’s the weight of a breath? The heft of a sigh? A husk drops to the ground to rattle and roll down the hedgerow. In their earthen… Read More PASSAGES
A WELL TRAVELED HEART 