After the day we have all had trying to digest information about the coronavirus and then bring to figure out what to do with it, I am exhausted as I sit down to write. Most of the motion seems to be away from each other, which led me back to a poem by Pádraig Ó…
A friend and I used to collect oxymorons: jumbo shrimp, student teacher, El Camino Classic. The current state of affairs has given us another one: social distancing. As I turned it over in my head today, I went to a list of phrases I have been collecting from various sources and put this poem together….
I went to New York for work today and the train ride hope turned into a litany of loved ones who are hurting tonight for a number of reasons. As I sat down to write, I found myself turning to the words–and music–of others. Red Molly is a trio who harmonize like they are related….
I am going to lean into an old poem tonight because I have spent most of the evening cooking and eating with a small group from church. We filled ourselves up with pimento cheese-stuffed pork loin and black-eyed pea risotto, as well as with laughter, good questions, and good stories. This poem feels like a…
One of the things I brought back from our trip to Memphis was my allergic reaction to whatever pollen was floating in the air. I have lived with allergies all of my life, which means I have taken some sort of antihistamine–or multiples of them–for most of my life as well. I have not had…
My head and heart are full tonight, so this post is as well. As the news of Elizabeth Warren ending her presidential bid found me and I realized, as many did, that the election has devolved into Grumpy Old Men 3: Patriarchy and Privilege, I went back to James Cone’s The Cross and the Lynching…
First, I want you to watch this short film–which I learned about from my friend, Hugh Hollowell, who has a wonderful newsletter–you can subscribe here–then we’ll talk. I feel presumptuous even saying anything after such a wonderful picture of love, but I am going to anyway. If you have followed this blog for any time…
As I, like many have mourned the death of James Lipton, who hosted Inside the Actors’ Studio, I learned he wrote a book, An Exaltation of Larks, which is a “lovingly curated ode to the unique collective nouns that adorn our language.” As a way to honor him, and because I, too, love collective nouns–words…
Some nights I sit down to write with a heart full of stuff to say; other nights–like this one–I rummage around through my notes and scroll through pages looking for inspiration. Such is the nature of a practice, I suppose: sometimes it is easier than others. Today is the sixty-fourth anniversary of my parents’ wedding….
minor gifts when it comes to campaigns major donors give big bucks minor givers give lesser gifts and are, thus, less on lots of levels but minor in music means melancholy a flatted third makes a home for sadness and songs in the key of grief one note changes a chord one moment changes a…