No color left to speak of in the woods. It’s ash gray, bone colored, drab greens and browns. The feel of cold wind rushing through a bare forest. Keeping an eye on the creaking trees (they sound like zippers). How… Read More ›
Creative Nonfiction
Tending and mending
You couldn’t see the moon because of the clouds but with it almost full it made the night sky milky white. More wind had raked down branches throughout the yard, pine needles too. My new haz mat suit was waiting… Read More ›
It’s a shame about Ray
Foggy morning walks through Soaring Eagle state park. By December the color has drained down to a dull copper with some last yellow in the leaves. The rest of the landscape is green, cloaked in gray. The deep greens of… Read More ›
Last Sunday in November
So long 54. With Thanksgiving late in the month this year it runs headlong into Christmas and no one’s missing a beat. My birthday fell the Sunday after turkey day and we went back to our favorite neighborhood restaurant, Jak’s…. Read More ›
For Frank
Great big scoops of sleep. Sleep like slipping down a sliding board. Pillowy clouds of sleep to sail away upon. Sleep like disappearing. Woke remembering my uncle Frank, brother to my grandmother, forever single. Why do they always pick on… Read More ›
From the getting clean vignettes
Bob had a beard before any of us. And I never saw him without his baseball cap. Bob drove a pickup truck, chewed tobacco and could always be counted on for having weed. Bob had a canoe too, so one… Read More ›
Beware of Maya
Drab autumn days. Leaves the color of old copper coins. Days meant for sofas and blankets and gloomy tunes. In short, my favorite kind of days. Days of tea and cloudy afternoons and poetry. Days of naps and not brushing… Read More ›
Portrait of a domestic house cat
When Timmy got agitated, which was often, he’d go to the wooden frames throughout the house and scratch. That or the carpets. He’d left the leather sofas alone but they were still ruined from him jumping up and down on… Read More ›
Dark enough
At last all the leaves were down. I used the tractor to grind them to bits and the blower to scatter the remains. In no time I’d been to Portland and back to the dark of my morning den. The… Read More ›
Field recordings, Portland
I went back to Portland to see my childhood friend Loren for the night. Arrived early and left 24 hours later. We took our familiar walks and ended things where we started, at his local coffee shop, Keeper. In the… Read More ›