One of the signs of getting older is realizing there’s only one sweater you really need and then sticking to it, hanging it like a coat in the entryway for quick and easy access: and because you happen to be… Read More ›
aging
The sweet smell of woodsmoke mixed with ocean spray
I pulled into Portland around sunset, crossed the grated bridge through the city limits, two fingers of light left on the horizon. Hard to keep my eyes on the road with the snow-covered volcanoes on my left, the sky turning… Read More ›
Whether we feel it or not, the earth moves beneath us
It was the first night this year that didn’t fall so hard. If it had been a theater production and a light cue, they changed the fadeout from 30 seconds to 60. Though unseen, hope stirred underground and you could… Read More ›
A hot bath with David Bowie’s last record
At their height the veins in these hands looked like power cords, like ridge lines on the moon pumping blood from the heart to the fingers, swollen blue but now, more summertime worms scarcely seen, dried up, bloodless: there, it… 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 ›
Poem for Bukowski on horses, days, the rain
The days ran down the side of the hill the way the rain can, how you don’t notice it’s worn down the surface until it slides right off. Inspired by the title of a Bukowski poetry collection, The Days Run… Read More ›
Dystopic recovery home for the aged and injured, 2040
After the fall, he woke in the hospital surrounded by screens and computers with robot assistants monitoring them. There was a tablet connected to a retractable arm like the kind they had on planes and he wondered dimly if he… Read More ›
Final thoughts during the flight safety video leaving Newark
When my mom asked if I needed a pair of warmer socks for our walk (I’m 45) I reminded her this is the guy who’s slept on the side of glaciers and gotten up in the middle of the night… Read More ›
Leaving the Intercontinental, Frankfurt via the A67
Something like 7 AM in the Frankfurt airport parking garage and the lift is out of order so we take the stairs and right away, it’s that Cold War vibe from the paint tones and the little signs and starkness… Read More ›
Morning sky drawn in sidewalk chalk
Passage from Dover to Dunkirk, via Reims, to southern Germany Past the old vicarage down the hill in time for the last of the owls, bending at the bottom through a valley to the lake for disabled anglers — No… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 