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In late August when the sycamorestarts tossing leaves brittled byunrelenting sun, I’m alwayssurprised to find the lawnlittered with the dead anddying. It happens annually,but it feels unseasonably early. I’ve called this sycamore minefor 38 summers. Perhapsour real purpose is not … Continue reading →

“It’s always more fun to eat out,”I tell my neighbor whose kittywanders down to my porch most mornings. “Hi, Hercules,”I say, as he sits politelybut expectantly, waiting for breakfast. Sometimes dinner.It’s not that he doesn’tget fed at home, his mom … Continue reading →

That’s the pisser—the dilemma with noeasy resolution, no good answer:when to hold on,when to let go. We are a holding-onspecies, reluctantletter-goers, especially when ourtender heartsache with loss. We want this oneback, never wantedthat one to go, the clench of griefsqueezing … Continue reading →

You left Wednesday, Marge, beforeI could return Friday to take down detailsof your 79 years for the obit. You’ve been in hospice for onlytwo weeks, moved to independentliving less than a month ago, and though I haven’t married your brother,you’ve … Continue reading →

(and no, it doesn’t rhyme with “violets”*) You want me to write a triolet?OK, then, I’ll try.Turns out it’s a fun game to play.You want me to write a triolet?Once I start, I might just do this all day.Testing my … Continue reading →

Not that I ever mastered perfect parking,much less parallel, although living in a city all these years, I have gotten better. But Ifind myself deeply annoyed one dark night by the yellow flap of paper-that-is-not-a-ticketwaiting under my windshield wiper, bearing … Continue reading →

I imagine the man whose name hasfiltered through the centuries—notthe master printer with his innovative press, but that of Henricus Cremer,the rubricator who inked red capitalletters onto delicate paper, whose hands bound and inscribedthat Bible in August 1456. He couldnot … Continue reading →

Scorching is what it is, 105 this afternoon—no biggie to desert dwellers baskingin 118—but most humans were not made for such stupid hot temperatures.And we’re getting hotter, thanks tohotheads boiling over, which makes my internal thermometer rise. To cooldown, I … Continue reading →

the night before the big blue truck comes to swallowthe contents of the green bin, where the compostablesjoin thousands of early sycamore leaves brownedby summer, I think, not for the first time, how could I haveforgotten those peaches I was … Continue reading →

Though I am not a beet person,I admire the color and shape,the just-pulled-from-the-earthinessaroma of the spherical rootswith their curly tails. But when I touch the frilly leaves,I see his hands on them, tuggingthem out of inhospitable dirt. Somehow he got … Continue reading →