In the morning I go outside to smell the ground because it rained in the night, the first time in months, and the rain is a novelty that won’t stay that way for long, as novelties do. And it has… Read More ›
prose
To burn or to fade
The flowers are wilted but give off some color still. The morning is damp, the first time in 50 days. You can hear the earth drink, the birds cry, the gutters trickle. All is still, a bough dips under the… Read More ›
As the yard began to brown
Green is the color of life, and for today I am wrapped in a quilt of it on grass and fern and hanging tree boughs. Brown comes next, it is already on the edges of the sword fern, the cedars,… Read More ›
Memento
We are trying hard to belong here by collecting what we can, to remember where we’ve been.
But no urns
Mid-morning naps by the window with my hands clasped. The clocks and dog beside me, clouds kneading the sun. This is the way they’d try to make me look, peaceful and serene, flowers by the entryway, a boxful of tissues,… Read More ›
Meditation on a sun break
All this new shrub I planted needs is light and rain to take root. Good soil. And so it pours through me too and that’s all I need to make my own flowers or fruit, what we use to create…. Read More ›
The week of my life
It is just another Wednesday. Not a manic Monday but a day to connect other days, a waiting room, a tunnel. Down we go the slide of days to the bottom, back the metal rungs to the top. Half way… Read More ›
The view looking in
Solemnly he moved across the floor and back to the sofa where he lay on his side looking out the window. There was hair everywhere in the cracks and crevices, dog hair. He imagined the hair adhering to him when… Read More ›
The cosmic distance ladder
Morning time in the old German village where we once lived. The narrow stone roads that feel like a labyrinth, more for pedestrians than cars. The sound of tire tread when cars pass slow. Everyone smoking. Past the Italian bakery… Read More ›
That last Christmas in Cork
We’d sit out there in the late afternoons as dusk came on and the thin windows beaded up with condensation, forming jeweled patterns in the corners. With the glow of the lights and the heater it felt cozy, like looking out from the inside of a gingerbread house.
