Category Archives: Uncategorized

(The Sea Ranch, Sonoma coast) Mid-September, and the purple irisare long gone, as is the spring green,so showy when we were last here,but what’s flaunting its flowingmanes like so many show poniesalong the coast highway isthe Pampas grass— not to … Continue reading →

“Anything I’d have to say has been said,”she told me over lunch. “What’s the point?Who cares?” I feel the tiny writer sigh deep insidemy spleen, the one who grips the pen,try to keep the are-you-kidding-me disbelief from splashing across my … Continue reading →

Right in front of the birdbathin the front yard of my mother’s house,the old concrete bowl still firmly attached to its pedestal with anow-detached little bird that restson its side. I refill the birdbath, as my father did, as my … Continue reading →

(for Terri Wolf in Port Ludlow, Washington) In the midst of our online chat,Terri abruptly said, “A bird justslammed into the glass”—the largepicture window over her deskout of which she beholds statelypines marching downhill tothe deep blue of the Hood … Continue reading →

In the nail salon, she’smanicuring for the big daytomorrow, getting marriedin a friend’s lovely yard,the young woman whosehands are currently being heldby a blue-gloved womanfiling newly appliedFrench tips. I overhear the story—about 30 guests, plentyof parking in the neighborhood,neighbors making … Continue reading →

Every leaf fall is a letting go,the death of the once-verdant,wishing that it might hang onforever to the branch fromwhich it sprang. As the autumnal equinox creepsup on us, the dying has begun.Dog days have consumed spring’sgreen gift and summer’s … Continue reading →

Like plucking fat blackberries offa still-loaded bush in September,putting most into a dented colanderto take inside to someone you love,who could use some sweetnesson the tongue, mindful to pop one into your owneager mouth, too, here and there,greedily licking your … Continue reading →

How different it looks,day to night, night to day,as I see it for myself for the first time, the tallspire arrowing into the sky,a iron-and-steel tribute to what was that awfulyear when you disappearedin a whoosh six months before the … Continue reading →

Is not octopi.It’s octopuses. Because you can’t stick a Latin endingon a Greek word,and octopus is as Greek as Achilles, oktṓpous, the singular creature, andoktṓpodes amounting to more than oneof the cephalopods, whose very name translates to “eight legs,”though the … Continue reading →

(for Curtis… and my mother) It goes back to the college boyfriendwith the vision impairment who taughtme to always cap the toothpaste,never to leave a clear glass in the sink,and always tuck sharp knives intothe mini butcher block on the … Continue reading →