Monthly Archives: February 2024

(for Al and Terri Wolf) Al’s bird feeders are diligently attendedby all manner of small-winged neighbors Isee from behind the glass. He has left all fivefull for the wee birds who flit like butterflies,land, peck and flee, making it hard … Continue reading →

(If you are oogied out by mention of bodily fluids, you might want to skip this one! I quite understand…) ••• Naturally, I employ Dr. Google’s expertise: Snot, or nasal mucus, is a helpful bodily product.Your nose and throat are … Continue reading →

So on the third day of Lent I’ve got COVID,it turns out, the day after a day of travelwhen so many strangers came to my aidas I made my way on public transportationin a city not my own. I think … Continue reading →

•••(On the 2:05 p.m. ferry from Seattle to Bainbridge Island)••• (for Georgann) I don’t remember the names of all the ferrieswe rode across the water from your islandto the mainland. And I don’t think I ever got out of the … Continue reading →

You’d think it’d be simple,to allow the stomach to swell,feel the balloons of your lungs to fill,your chest to rise like one of those balloonslifting skyward —and breathe. But you find that as you try to inhale,the vines you once … Continue reading →

Love’s arrow pierces,not always in the romantic sense, but always square in the heart,injecting sweet venom that, if we are lucky, fills our veins,infecting us with so much affection for this one and that oneand that one, our dearest who … Continue reading →

And we pray, notfor new earth or heaven, but to bequiet in heart, and in eyeclear. What we need is here. —Wendell Berry, from “The Wild Geese” ••• (for Dickie on his 81st birthday) Even on the coldest days, when … Continue reading →

(noun: German (zane-zookt) yearning; wistful longing) We hear it in friends’ voices in the coldest places,in regions where they’ll be lucky to see spring by May, that wistful longing for somethingnot icy and cold, or even just wet and cold. … Continue reading →

“Her words, written to bridge the gap between us, cut through space and time.”— Genevieve Kingston, “She Put Her Unspent Love in a Cardboard Box” (The New York Times) (for Georgann) I have her letters scrawled in hernever-warm flat in … Continue reading →

Letter by letter, we assemble building blocksthat tower, that align, that make our lipspurse with sound, that we spit out as words linked like train cars, coupling and un-,rearranging into sentences, paragraphs,pages that, written down or spoken, become language. Yours … Continue reading →