Category Archives: Uncategorized

(for Jill Batiansila and the Together We Healcommunity, with love and gratitude) Whether we want to or not, likeacorns released from their jaunty caps,dropping from valley oaks like arrows, we crack, we split, not for any reasonwe can determine, but … Continue reading →

Diego walks in the house callingand will not stop until he finds me.He’s not seeking food, just reassurance. Where are you? There you are.You were gone, and I couldn’t find you. I’m here! I call,knowing without looking thathe’s paused in … Continue reading →

Even when you walk the same streettwo hours later, things look different— picket fence shadows slanting northward,bread plate-sized sycamore leaves wind-pressed against a retaining wall. The walk home feels different, too—mid afternoon sun on your face,a vigorous breeze skittering the … Continue reading →

Not Indian, for good reasons,though I like the notion that the namefor this in-between season possiblycame from the Narragansett peoplewho believed that these distinctlyun-fallish days were delivered bya warm wind from the great spiritCautantowwit. This second summer, after the first … Continue reading →

Because I was teaching—something I rarely do thesedays—I missed the eclipse,relying on the eyes of others, later absorbed by photos ofhundreds of tiny half moonsprojected through a pinholeof some kind—a colander in one case—little smudgesof light and shadow spillingonto sidewalk … Continue reading →

(on her feast day, Oct. 15) Watering the garden of the soulhelps it grow, she said, likethe initial strain of pulling afull bucket up from a well gradually becoming easier,as if by a God-driven pulley,leading to effortless irrigationby an unseen … Continue reading →

In certain ways writing is a form of prayer.—Denise Levertov Let the pen fold into the handlike the neck bending forward,chin tilting down, Let the point of the pen touchthe blank page with reverence,with gentle pressure, Let the ink begin … Continue reading →

(for Sue Reynolds on her birthday) The day you turned 2Paddington made his debut,a stowaway from darkest Peru, the tag on his jacket reading,Please look after this bear,with the sweet face of one who tries so hard to get things … Continue reading →

The coming cold creeps into the houseon dewy feet of cats as they pushthrough the swinging flap, arriving with the damp of overnightsprinkles, leaping onto the bedto imprint you with the beginning of seasons when your feet willnever be truly … Continue reading →

(in memory of Dorothy Hoffner) She flew out of a plane,104 years young, not her first sky rodeo—she’d made her first jump at 100—and wantedto soar earthward again, which she did, saying,Let’s go. Let’s go, Geronimo, diving headfirst, her instructortandem’d … Continue reading →