nourishment over lunch I looked back at my marginalia from my morning’s reading we must align our functioning with those we depend on for life to be sustainable weighty words for one sitting at the bar at doody’s waiting on a wedge salad when I gave my order as she filled my water glass the…
I have had the privilege of spending a few days doing nothing but practicing friendship with a group of men who care deeply for one another. This poem grew out of the observations of one of them as we sat on the porch together after dinner last night. in a clearing the room held silence…
all saints we move too quickly to divide the world that’s a complete sentence but it’s not the whole story we move too quickly to divide the world into saints and sinners as though life is a contest that demands winners and losers so that some…
almosts it doesn’t have to be a sudden death shoot out for the little things to matter horse shoe nails go missing long before kingdoms start falling we miss most of the might have beens and play on unaware of all the almosts that roll by disguised as incidentals to see them all might be…
mercy drops who knows why old hymns rise to the surface but I found myself singing about showers of blessing for no apparent reason other than the rain hitting my windshield wipers keeping time until I got stuck on two words mercy drops I almost stopped and ran under the rain hoping to be drenched…
patina “people weather over the course of their lives . . .” Eva Meijer when I got my new carbon steel skillets they came pre-seasoned but without the scars a patina will develop with use the leaflet explained they will show their age like a copper pipe or a bronze statue the lichen on stone…
distance some days any distance is too much to traverse I can’t get there from here like today the text from one to say the cancer cannot be challenged any care will be palliative the picture from another of the dog who has died the dog who welcomed me always the absence carries like an…
poetic license all I wanted was some water when I stepped into the Spar a step up from the gas station convenience stores I know I walked past fresh produce and Irish baked goods a food counter and a coffee machine to be surprised by spring water that bore the name of W B Yeats…
cross purposes growing up they said nothing but the blood as though violence was some kind of necessity a cosmic payoff in a world where blame and shame are primary currency we’ve lived enough history to know that violence isn’t redemptive we’ve built whole worlds based on bloodshed we’ve organized Jesus’ execution into stations ordered…
just a thought after a supper that took a turn they didn’t understand and an arrest that left them lost we do well to remember not one of them said “I’ll see you Sunday” Peace, MIlton