When the sun rose you could hardly tell. A set of bats stirred from their perch, and were gone. The whole tree, made of bats. Some branches wagged and bobbed, didn’t say a word. The gray inaction, Sunday morning. Even… Read More ›
prose
A degree off from beige
I don’t know why, but I built a fire out back in the afternoon and stood by it. It got so cold one night a planting pot blew out the side and hung open like a cartoon mouth on a… Read More ›
Once more to elsewhere (“are you paying attention?”)
All the details of the world when you’re really in it. The guy at the gas station wheeling in the delivery, the small, waking patterns along the seam of morning, how the mind spins and shakes and follows whatever flickers… Read More ›
Snow-covered mineshaft grate
I took the 900 around the back side of Cougar Mountain, but it doesn’t get much direct light this time of year and the road was icy in early morning, with snow on the trees still—and when Ginger and I… Read More ›
By the time we got to New Year’s
It was cold enough we could use the garage as an overflow for the fridge and I went out there splitting wood, breaking down boxes, consolidating the remains of Christmas pasts and presents—and even though we said we wouldn’t, we… Read More ›
Meditation on a nameless day
Climbing mountains you get high enough you can see above the cloud deck, the tips of the other peaks coming through, how the clouds look like soup from above, and in every direction just the land stretching out, no cities—like… Read More ›
On Tuesdays they come for the recycling
Then the clouds came down so low they flattened the trees and the rain thickened, the drains backed up, the only color from the dead leaves hanging on like rust, the rest of it graphite gray: and the grocery store… Read More ›
St. Stephen’s Day, west Cork, ’15
All the UPS drivers have gone home to their families with their shorts and their socks, and the gravel road out front is quiet tonight with no crunching of wheels or deliveries: the grocery store is closed but they’re getting… Read More ›
Wet metal drum
The sound of the rain came back last night, choking the corner gutter. The feeling when life pulls away in some irreversible moment, a large ship moving out from the dock and everyone running down to the end of it… Read More ›
Abusing cough syrup with New Age music and household pets
We didn’t own any thermometers in the house, didn’t want to. I went to the store for a sponge so I could use one in the bath to warm up, and then I answered some emails and got into bed,… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 