Monthly Archives: March 2026

If this were Hawaii,we’d be looking for honuas we walk this blufftop trail. But this is California’s central coast,where kelp forests shimmy underthe surface of the sea, not turtles,though a few slender-neckedcormorants on the hunt pop up,then dive to surface … Continue reading →

The first tentative forayof a not-too-long walkputs us on an elevated path above Pacific waves smashingrocks into sand. We bothget easily winded, especially coming up steepstairs that lead to and fromthe tiny cove mostly hidden (as its name testifies)unless you … Continue reading →

hover over a quartet of almonds,which sidles up to a couple of olives, alongside a bit of goat cheesethe color of the streaky clouds high over the ruler-straight horizondividing sea and sky. You, butterfly lover, would admirethis arrangement. He, a … Continue reading →

No birder, I can’t identify them,except as birds, and I don’t need to. What moves me, far away in warmer,western weather, is the snow falling in the video, the chirps of birdsthat, I hope, indicate some kind of delight. Some … Continue reading →

There is something more to come.—Dorianne Laux It’s the amorphous, pliable, stickysomething that stops us,clenches us in fear, the what-ifs mounting like bricksmortared in place to keep us inor something out. But oh, dear ones, what ifwe took up that … Continue reading →

(for those struggling and in pain) It is no easy thing to hold pain.The sharp, porcupine-y pointspierce your palms, fine threads of blood embroidering your life line,and even if you set it down,trying to shake off the wounds like a … Continue reading →

It is difficult to get the news from poetry, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there. —William Carlos Williams, poet and physician,Sept. 13, 1883–March 4, 1963 ••• Within every problem is a poem,and your … Continue reading →

We in the news business would like to askif you might support us with a small donation.We would not normally make such a request,but these are, as you know, far from normal timse.As newspapers face rising costs and are forcedto … Continue reading →

At 2 a.m. I awaken with a sensationI haven’t had in a week, a rumblyin my tumbly, as Pooh sang, rather than the struggling lowerdigestives healing from infectionchurning painfully. And I rise, think what I might eat,remember the split pea … Continue reading →

As a young musician, I thought Aaron Coplandcomposed the tune, coming as it does a goodway into his “Appalachian Spring,” but there on the stage only a baker’s dozenof musicians and a conductor, a double stringquartet, actually, playing melodies and … Continue reading →