Category Archives: Uncategorized

Emily at 195

Dearest Miss D.,I hope that you have awell-deserved placein the balcony where you can look down uponscads of us mere mortalswho hold your wordsin the highest esteem, shy as you were aboutpublishing in your day.I have fat books ofyour poems … Continue reading

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To the one who rakes the ginkgo leaves

Every year, as this tree outside thescience building on the universitycampus I still think of as mine releases its gold bounty, I makea mini pilgrimage to stand beneath itand wonder who comes with what implement and makes perfect circlesaround the … Continue reading

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A perennial hallelujah

This time last year, I found myselfcaring for two aging femalesboth literally on their last legs,one with four furry ones,the other a two-legged onewho hadn’t had to shaveher smooth legs for years. This year as the sun sets earlier andearlier, … Continue reading

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How guys say they love you #502

They make you special art and leave itwhere you’ll find it, fully expecting youto use it for the purpose for whichit was originally intended. As if you’d ruin such heartfelt sentiment.As if you don’t go looking for another roll.As if … Continue reading

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If we’d’a seen this photo thirty years ago

We might’a thought: Look at the cute old peopletaking their own photonext to a trough of fire. It must be winter—they’reall bundled, though the manis wearing an aloha shirtunder his jacket. Do yousuppose he likes Hawaii? And the lady is … Continue reading

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Easy come

Sure, easy go, too,but after all these yearsof having words flutter by and, when possible,pinning them down—or at least borrowing them to affix temporarilyto a page—I have cometo see them for the gift they are, not to thinkof it as … Continue reading

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Listen

A day like this one—afterdayafterdayafterdayof gray skies, low-hangingtule fog, stupid fog, notpretty, wispy, mystical,moody San Francisco fog— when the sun makes ata da! appearance, though,of course, it’s been makingits daily march across the skywhile we hunkered downunder the stupid cold … Continue reading

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The Thread

While you hold it you can’t get lost. … Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.You don’t ever let go of the thread. —William Stafford, from “The Way It Is” ••• I am the thread, one who keeps you connected … Continue reading

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Ways to break a heart

Your heart’s no good as a heart until it’s been broken at least ten times.—Actor/screenwriter Emma Thompson quoting her grandmother ••• 1. Being born. If that’s not a heartbreaker, what is? Coming into air, for starters, cold air that prompts … Continue reading

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Drag queens

Just look at them flaunting their true colorsthat have lain hidden under their modest greenrobes since spring. Some leafy one must flip a switch, and the treesthat participate go all-out like the drag queensthey secretly are for the rest of … Continue reading

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