I have struggled to write tonight. I have been sitting at the screen for a couple of hours and have three or four beginnings to poems that should not be finished. Somewhere in my search for something, I remembered a poem I wrote many years ago–when I was teaching high school–and it has remained important…
Today was my birthday, so I’m am finding my way to the keyboard in the waning moments to say I am glad to be alive and aging. Birthdays at our house are intentionally surprises. The person being celebrated is given information about the day on a need to know basis. For me, that meant leaving…
One of the highlights of our time in Durham was the monthly gathering at Fullsteam Brewery for “Beer and Hymns.” Jesse DeConto and his bandmates led us in singalongs, both sacred and secular. One of those Sunday nights was the first time I ever heard “Canticle of the Turning.” my soul cries out with a…
a shared table It is not news to say I love to cook for people. I have told the story of our Thursday Night Dinners many times. As I have tried to negotiate life without a regular income, two friends from church, Gus and Mike, suggested we host ticketed dinners where I cooked and people…
zoom before the word was a way to talk across the pandemic or sent kids around the room Zoom was the nickname of one who captivated my country with the way he played football I was a child in Zambia kicking soccer balls in the backyard and chanting his name as we sat in the…
most of our stories go untold to those around us or perhaps they are unheard misunderstood because they we are not fluent in each other it’s unfair I suppose to say anything about most of our stories as though they could be collected in a single volume the library of humanity isn’t so easily contained…
In this last week before my sixty-sixth birthday, I started something new: I became a Lyft driver. The idea came from my cousin who does so herself in Texas. We were catching up and talking about ways to make a little cash and she suggested I look into the service. She went on to tell…
One of the realities of my life is I am not hard to overhear. I would love to say my hearing loss is primarily to blame, but I have talked loudly all of my life. I have a booming voice, as they say. As my hearing loss has become profound (the official word), I have…
I would love to tell you I remember who gave me this recipe. As you can see from the photograph, it has been around a long time and, based on the “this one” written and circled, it replaced one I had used previously. It has also erased the memory of the former recipe. For all…
repeating myself if someone says they are going through the motions we take it to mean the motions are meaningless acts of resignation things we can do in our sleep but I would suggest that the story is not so simple the motions are memories or at least they hold them to repeat what I…