Pouring boiling water down the sink drain to kill the fruit flies. The look of them in the dark as it spills through, this everyday violence. Remembering what my arm looked like when I cut it as a 5-year-old, running… Read More ›
writing
Down the hill, from green to black
I got the ax out of the chicken coop to split the wood for the first autumn fire. Without ceremony, I hung the lawn chairs in the garage for the season and put away the hammock and lawn furniture. A… Read More ›
Top down
On the first foggy morning of late September the daylight cut itself in half and the moon looked full as we drove home from our birthday celebration for Charlotte. We climbed the steps to bed, the three of us (Dawn… Read More ›
Song to the dark lands
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… Read More ›
Twilight September
In the late afternoon shadows, by the underlit leaves, near a tree bent by the weight of its own fruit…in the breeze between summer and fall: there, in the crook of a bush by a rock I spied a colored… Read More ›
The flavor is in the blood
Any cook will tell you, when you brown meat and rest it on the plate, blood will accumulate there and you always use that blood, or whatever juice comes out, when you put it in the pot. I sat in… Read More ›
Red wine and rain (repeat 3x, fast)
Down came the rain like a permanent marker. The permanence of fall, of nature, of flame. And the gutters gasped, and the rain slapped until it made sparks when it hit. And down the panes like a waterfall, the cadence… Read More ›
Rainer Maria Rilke made me write this
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… Read More ›
Near to fall
And so at last it was done, the book of poems I spent all summer with it seemed. They weren’t my poems, but became mine more and more each day. I sat on a chair in the grass and put… Read More ›
Gone are the 8 o’clock sunsets
How much was left undone by summer’s end, in the corner of our back yard by the maple tree. The work was coming in again, with everyone coming back from vacations and wanting their things fast-tracked, rush jobs. Learning all… Read More ›