Author Archives
Bill Pearse publishes memoir, travel journals, poetry and prose, and lives in the Pacific Northwest.
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This ocean size
I went back to Forks, the small logging town on the Washington coast, back to the gas station with the sandwich shop and the formica booth out front beneath the mossy overhang, the old sign with 1960s font that says… Read More ›
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Second person singular
You knew it would come to this, one day the kids leave the nest. You are left with yourself and your things, the memory of who you were as a couple and who you will be now that they’re gone…. Read More ›
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Last visit to Prague
It was strange to be in Prague again wandering like a tourist down that cobblestone street past the church, the old clocks, the streetcar tracks. Strange to be with a friend I hadn’t seen for so long but stranger still… Read More ›
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The reckoning
When you find death or death finds you what is it like? Your cat on the floor, I remember that. The first time you felt something taken from you you treasured and knew from the time of its birth. Because… Read More ›
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Song for replenishment
Let us be near the water and not want for anything else In the morning when the sun lights the tops of the tall trees and they burn like a candle to the bottom Let us be near the water… Read More ›
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Old to begin
How is it I have grown old, old in the best of ways they call “aged” and priced and valued as such, and hard to find. How is it I have grown old and at the same time renewed, this… Read More ›
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When the amber alert woke us at 3:43
We thought it was nuclear war and wished we’d bought more water and planned for this but instead it was just the life of some kid we didn’t know, not our own And we went back to bed with the… Read More ›
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The drugs don’t work
At first there is not much to remember. Our phone number, which mom makes me memorize. Our address, which is where we live. Both have a rhythm that helps me retain the pattern and I can hear the numbers in… Read More ›
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The secret to our future lies
In the dark corners of the library I am looking for my past. The corners are dark because it is the early 80s and I can barely picture it now. The new library has just opened in the old part… Read More ›
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In the mouth a desert
I wonder where the phones are leading our kids, are leading all of us, what it’s done to us and if it’s too late to undo.
Bill Pearse 