Category Archives: death

‘My mind is in garlands’

Posted on November 1, 2018 by

Our inability to get our kids to do stuff manifest itself most in their rooms. This week, after years of trying, I gave up. There are wet towels, empty bags of chips, old glasses of juice, clothes everywhere they should … Continue reading →

Posted in death, Memoir | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 15 Comments

‘Wax and wane’

Posted on October 30, 2018 by

By the time we got to the end of October I was done with it. The Halloween decals on the windows, the witches and skulls…it seemed to go on forever, like it should have been over by now. The skeleton … Continue reading →

Posted in death, writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 14 Comments

Song to the dark lands

Posted on September 22, 2018 by

When I look through the trees at the park near our house they are all pretty much the same as when we started coming here—like me, a bit older but still the same, mostly unnoticed. And the kids were so … Continue reading →

Posted in death, prose, writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 19 Comments

The soul dies first

Posted on September 20, 2018 by

At the end of it, the wick is either cut too short or it’s so long, it falls on its side and can’t stand up, won’t light. And so much wax left, in the shape of what remains. This body … Continue reading →

Posted in death, prose | Tagged , , , , , , , | 15 Comments

Rainer Maria Rilke made me write this

Posted on September 8, 2018 by

The afternoon sky looks pregnant but it’s too early to tell. And the tall trees reach to tickle its belly with stick fingers drawn by a kid. The dishwasher and drier are running, and there’s a pot on the stove … Continue reading →

Posted in death, prose, writing | Tagged , , , , , , | 9 Comments

Walking down the unlit hallway of life

Posted on August 22, 2018 by

Outside in the mid-afternoon there was just the sound of birds and kids and cars going by. It was too hot for anything, everyone hanging onto the edges by the shade. I’d gotten up when the church bells struck six … Continue reading →

Posted in death, Memoir, travel | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 24 Comments

A jarful of days

Posted on July 30, 2018 by

In the corner of my yard in the mid-afternoon heat in my hammock with Pablo Neruda between my legs, my glasses off, bare-chested and unbathed, I think about death: my body a lump in a sack swinging here: all this, … Continue reading →

Posted in death, poetry, writing | Tagged , , , , , , | 9 Comments