And were we like those same straps they used to hold up trees, that look like slingshots tied from the trunk to the post—were we that same post for our kids, meant to just stay there in the ground long… Read More ›
aging
Monday stop light meditation at the five-way
The kids were small enough then they didn’t have the wherewithal to complain or object, they just got in the car with the dog, the three of them in the back and me driving, Dawn saying isn’t this nice, and… Read More ›
Stick this in your LinkedIn profile
When I met the other consultant the first thing I thought was god, he’s young and the next thing, god, I’m old…I’d been out of the workforce about a year, maybe two…but I felt much older than that, I felt… Read More ›
A branch the size of an oar on a medieval slave ship
I worked a couple hours in the yard cleaning up branches and breaking down limbs clipping, sweeping, yanking out roots and pruning, stuff we probably should have done in the fall—then just got in the car and drove out to… Read More ›
‘Where he’d really be’ (for Alfred Lambert)
There’d been some sun for a few minutes in the morning but then it went back to gray and acted like it would storm. The days fanned out like messily cracked eggs fumbling for the edges of the pan, legless… Read More ›
Winter takes Queen
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 ›
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 ›
Bill Pearse 