"In the night also my heart instructs me."
Light falling into light, the way it does in the summertime, across an inner tube, black, valve sticking out, resting in the sandy soil of a campsite by the old trailer our father built. Light falling into light, the way it does in the wintertime, when the house is full and breathes and sighs with... Continue Reading →
There is always an after. I realized that sometime as a teenager, contemplating a big trip or a big holiday or a big…something. Whatever it was, it is now lost to memory. What I do remember is sitting on the cusp of this thing and suddenly thinking, “then it will be over.” I tried to... Continue Reading →
when the air is angry like that, all dripping with heat and thunder and coiled-up lighting — when the rain comes in like artillery fire, and the windowpanes might crack — when you despair of the paint on the car you parked last night in the front yard grass — when the air is angry... Continue Reading →
(Each of these three entries has been a reflection on a visit to Seattle, where Don and I visited with a group of people experiencing homelessness and then attended services at the Seattle Mennonite Church, which runs one of the few homeless shelters as well as a number of other outreach efforts in North Seattle.... Continue Reading →
Go upon the mountaintop to pray. Withdraw to a desolate place where desolation is all around you, and know that what has brought you here is not only joy but also sorrow, some strange admixture that you cannot parse out, calling you to whatever it is that is both out there and in here. Find... Continue Reading →
Birds flew above and swam below. Clouds opening into sunlight became in water a cave opening into darkness. I watched a swallow dive and skim the surface; its twin rose and almost surfaced, an almost-kiss before the two of them wheeled away from each other, going alike into light and into darkness. I could have... Continue Reading →
high banks, high water storm coming on current dragged her under more times than she could count losing count of breaths she thought of air turned brown water burning lungs shopping cart floating by ripped her thigh blood poured into water poured into wounds all over that body pulled over that bank (concrete slabs and... Continue Reading →
The things that I cannot control are legion. They rise up in my mind like legions of indefatigable Roman soldiers. I cannot control whether the house sells or my mother gets better or the planet burns. I can’t make cancer go away, and, no matter how I pray, the wars which trouble me and murder... Continue Reading →
The wildflowers he picked, replete with one majestic cattail, lasted only a few days. But in those days, they were splendid, holding court over the windowsill houseplants from their place in the vase on the coffee table. The priest (who, I hasten to add before your conditioned brain runs away with you, was a woman)... Continue Reading →
Let me come back to the present now, to the place where the cat’s nose is pressed against my index finger, tail curved around my forearm, cat wedged in the crook of my arm on a clear morning in mid July. How have I forgotten that it is mid-July and when did the summers become... Continue Reading →