Category Archives: Uncategorized

(for Cliff) Deep in the night I dreamyou holding a sphere of light, a mass that requires both hands—do you still have hands?— though light, it turns out is, well,light, hardly weighs a thing, pretty much weightless, butcradled in your … Continue reading →

(for Mom) Two months after you die, we have your housecleaned out and ready for renovation. Three months after you die, on a cloudy day,I drive from my town to yours to pick upfrom the cleaners a couple of Grandma‘safghans … Continue reading →

(for Rosie Just Giel) Today we have a new family memberwho, with some help, has emerged from her shell to find two parentswaiting for her, along with a brother and grandparents eager to tuck herunder their wings to keep her … Continue reading →

My favorite poem is the one I haven’t written yet.—Martha Silano When people ask, it’s impossible to choose.Not just of my own poems, which I can’t recite,but of all the poems that live in my heart, and, thankfully, on my … Continue reading →

whom I have never met but whoselines have touched me again and again, who is chronicling her gradual decline,but I do not cry for my dead mother? Is it because my mother was not a poet?(She did leave behind some … Continue reading →

It is not an easy assignment, being alive.—Maria Popova So we arrive, then, with an assignment,but it takes us most, if not all, of a lifetimeto figure out what that is? Or do we discern it bit by bit, awarenessdawning … Continue reading →

A loose ribbon of birds arrows over the shoreline,though we hear them before we see them,the gaggle perfectly synchronized,heading north. On our last coastal afternoon for now,we stop walking, look up to take inthe call and response of geese on … Continue reading →

The Sea Ranch, Sonoma coast, California We set off for our just-before-sunsetwalk with coats and hats and cameras,the kind that live now on our phones, but it is not until we are almostat the trail that I rememberI have forgotten … Continue reading →

Please pay no attention tothat nutty man behind the curtainin the land south of yourson this continent we share. If I could, I would send up anold-fashioned red biplanetowing a huge, ribbony sign,saying, Canada, We Love You! You have been … Continue reading →

(at The Sea Ranch—for Lauren Just Gieland other mamas-to-be) Standing on the blufflooking down at the beach,we sigh with recognition, admiration and a little envyat the fourteen snoozingharbor seals sprawled like sausages on the sand.We are out for a walk,checking … Continue reading →