Category Archives: Uncategorized

In these summer months namedfor Roman emperors—Juliusand his adopted son Augustus—we find ourselves happily fullof two sets of 31 days, and on this, the 31st day ofthe eighth month, the moontonight rises super full, closerto Earth, looking larger andbrighter, but … Continue reading →

(for National Grief Awareness Day) •••I want to praise things that cannot last…I want to praise everything brief and finite.—poet Barbara Crooker••• Praise the too-soon gone:the leaves that decorated springwith their green hands months ago,brittling in the last days of … Continue reading →

(for our father Roger, who art, we imagine, in heaven,and my sister Donna, who, happily, is still embodied) I invoked your names today on the drivewaywhere more than a half century ago one of you taught us how to wash … Continue reading →

(for Kai and Fia Skye) Let’s call it a holiday,24 hours when you canuse any tactics you liketo persuade peopleto verbally admire you (though you’ve decidedto graciously acceptlove notes in any form, too). So you don your mostflattering outfit, poof … Continue reading →

In a way I love them best like this—bleached of springgreen, grass gone golden—though I pray a stray spark,a careless or willful human does not ignite them, these old oaks sentinels solid and silent on undulatingearth under clear blue skies, … Continue reading →

(for Dickie and Michael) One of you credits the Other Onewith teaching One how toto swiftly and skillfully print black and white photosin a newspaper darkroom,though the Other One doesn’t remember it that way, saysthat One was inquisitive,eager to learn. … Continue reading →

(for Lisa and Stuart Morgan) Here’s to the trusty scoopsat the ready to ball up a perfectsphere of your favorite flavor,bound for dish or bowl or cone. Here’s to the porcelain-topped syrupdispensers with their clear letteringboldly announcing vanilla, strawberry,orange and … Continue reading →

A poem isn’t something I make, it’s something I serve…—Jane Hirshfield Serve the poem on a large platter;decorate with all the trimmingsaccompanied by hearty staples—yummy line breaks, tasty stanzas—smothered in metaphor. Let it stand as centerpieceof a moment, as a … Continue reading →

(for Christie Domasky) The morning glories’ purple abundancemakes it seem as if they’ll live foreveron the old fence in my back yard, unlike the poor fly buzzing aroundthe kitchen window, desperatefor a way out. And when I try to shoo … Continue reading →

’Tis the season, hot Augusthoppers filled with our city’s(sort of) namesake lumberingnorth on I-5 for processing, the two of us driving homeafter a weekend in the mountains,spotting the familiar image ofa California summer— 14 double-trailer’d hopperslugging untold tons of tomatoesto … Continue reading →