performative it seems like a cute reflex when a kid realizes they are on the stadium screen and they start to dance without the camera they would have stayed caught up in their cracker jacks or dreams of a foul ball but tell me there’s a chance my tweet could go viral and the dance…
emotional support books for umberto eco unread books were of more value than the read ones best for a library to hold what you don’t know reading is not conquest an exercise of trust page after page but what then of unreading the books that sit around in stacks or on shelves standing or lying…
night vision for Nathan Brown, Poet Laureate of the Apocalypse, on his birthday the moon was up before darkness fell round and bright like the Pixar lamp that turns and looks then it made room for a night-sky filled with tiny desk lamps casting light for one tired poet and another or maybe they are…
evening prayer the world is quiet in our town the moon shines through clouds as if God is under the covers reading with a flashlight I can hear no bombs or see any tracer rockets no buildings are burning no one has to hide to be safe I have done nothing to earn this quiet…
“No one cries over artificial flowers.”–Peter Coyote biscuit king by the time we moved to durham the biscuit king had ended his reign sunny side up was our breakfast joint in guilford till they closed down in charlestown collier’s market made the best cheeseburger sub evah I can chronicle my life in closed down restaurants…
the grace of never mind the oceans are rising the sky is falling I am careening through an obstacle course of obligations and overdue whatevers I have unread e-mail unanswered notifications unwashed laundry and unmade recipes everything’s important and requires my attention then there’s ukraine and war and washington have you seen today’s headline I’m…
winter wonderland I think winter gets a bad rap it gets blamed for the days getting shorter but that is autumn’s fault every day of winter is a little longer than the last yes, it’s cold but I like the cold it’s also chili and cornbread build a fire bundle up people ask if my…
alleluia advent this year feels more like a season of endurance than expectation as though ‘we made it’ might be a legitimate translation of alleluia in these days of distance the road to the manger seems in desperate need of repair who could believe that Christ could be born on a night like this the…
Over a decade ago–August 2009, to be exact–I sat down to write my post for the day and began this way: Somewhere in the middle of the afternoon today, I found what I thought would be the opening lines to a poem for my post: when they ask how you’re doing say something other than…
time piece The Long Island Sound faces south so even though I’m on the East Coast I can see sunrise and sunset over the water today they were only nine hours apart that’s all the daylight we got come back six months from now and that stretches to fifteen hours the days in between rocking…