Category Archives: Uncategorized

Eager eater that you are,you just pop them in your mouth,greedy for the flood of sweeton your tongue. But when a guest in someone’shome and given baskets of Bingsto cut and combine in a bowl,you are handed the pitter, vaguely … Continue reading →

Because you asked me to postthis photo of the two of usall mortarboard-ed up like so manyof the students we nurturedto graduations, many of whom didn’t thinkthey’d make it—some of whomwe didn’t think would make it— I’m reminded of your … Continue reading →

(for Dad’s birthday… and Mom, too) Having no idea if you’re even you anymore,gone these 21 years, it occurs to me thatif there is still something of you, the him, there might still be something of she, the her.And perhaps, … Continue reading →

I wanted to know,whoever I was, I wasalivefor a little while. —Mary Oliverexcerpt from “Dogfish,” from Dream Work © 1986, Penguin ••• One way to know you’re aliveis to use the body you were given— though you had no say … Continue reading →

For a week now, I have risenas the sky begins to pinken,to gently pull aside the windowshadeand see the collective of thirteen soaring pines downslopestanding at attention overthe Hood Canal. I look atthe half-finished upper deck that Al is building … Continue reading →

Which seems like a lot—the most I’ve ever hadin this lifetime— but not nearly as manyas the longtime lodgersperched on this hillside, long-trunked and denselybranched evergreens thathave logged perhaps two or three times mynumber of years. No wayto know until … Continue reading →

When you’re a guest in someone’shome, and they retire before you do, and you, downstairs in the guestroom, realize that it’s dark upstairs, and it’s midnightand you’ve got a yen for a snack, you decide that you’re fine—you don’t want … Continue reading →

Where it has been doing itsCalifornia imitation for months,pretending that this green place, too,is the land of little rain. Where the unirrigated roadsidehas gone golden, like muchof my home state. Where the climate flip-flopslike a just-landed salmon,the migrating ones headingupstream … Continue reading →

(between Kingston and Edmonds, Washington) Today you walk onwhile, underneath you,the four- and two-wheeled ones drive onto the thrumming deck,but you and your friends headup the long, elevated corridor where dozens of passengers maketheir way to long bench seatsor small … Continue reading →

The tree is saying things, in words before words.It says: Sun and water are questions endlessly worth answering.It says: A good answer must be reinvented many times, from scratch.It says: There are more ways to branch than any cedar pencil … Continue reading →