the farmers’ market is an act of faith,the sky starting to smell like snow . . .we are all dressed like vegetables are the last things on our minds, yetwe are as determined as the kale to make the most of this descending season. one friend finds me in the sweet potatoesand we swap stories…

Years ago, at a youth camp with my dear friend, John, I watched as he led his group in a visible expression of their connections with one another. One person started with a ball of string and tossed it to another while holding on to the end. Then she told the other what the connection…

they catch me coming and goingmy eyes itch my sinuses clog like an old drainwhether the treesare buddingor the leavesare taking theirparting shoton their wayto deathhow can something as simple ascoming and goingbudding and fallingcause so muchpain and discomfortin the midst ofbeauty and color? I think I’m stilltalking about leaves. Peace,Milton

At church last Sunday we lit the first candle for hope. At school this week, we are preparing to send out midterm progress reports. At my school, the reports have both a grade and a narrative. Most all of my students struggle in one way or another; some more than others. One boy is new…

It is difficultto get the news from poemsyet people die miserably every day……for lackof what is found there— William Carlos Williams Today I hit a wall I didn’t see coming. I ran into people who couldn’t see the metaphor sitting right in front of us. They weren’t stupid or belligerent or intractable; they just didn’t…

Madeleine L’Engle would have been ninety-two today. I think of her every Advent (and a number of other days as well) because she is the one who taught me about the Liturgical Year – through her writing, that is. I never got to meet her, though I had a couple of near misses. If you…

The night is far spent . . . Yes, there’s another half to that sentence, but it’s too early to write it down. We still have weeks of days growing shorter, of darkening afternoons, of lying down to sleep in the middle of all that is not yet. While the new year we mark with…

A couple of years ago, I recorded a story I wrote some years before that for a Christmas Eve service at our church in Marshfield, Massachusetts. I have some of the CDs available for purchase, should you wish to share them, or have one for yourself. Paypal says you can buy one by clicking the…

When it comes to spiritual metaphors, kingdom is problematic for me. I’ve written about it before. Thus, my sonnet offering for today. When Jesus talked of God, he spoke of shepherds and of kings –the metaphors held meanings people knew;they’ve survived the centuries when we speak and when we sing,yet the original meanings struggle to…

I don’t remember the first time I heard a Bob Dylan song. I do, however, remember the first one I learned on my guitar. It was 1970, I was a ninth grader with a new guitar, and my friend Jim had the words and chords: come gather ‘round people wherever you roamand admit that the…