Turning Toward the Morning by Gordon Bok When the deer has bedded down And the bear has gone to ground, And the northern goose has wandered off To warmer bay and sound, It’s so easy in the cold to feel The darkness of the year And the heart is growing lonely For the morning Oh, [...]
What You Realize When Cancer Comes You will not live forever—No you will not, for a ceiling of clouds hovers in the sky. You are not as brave as you once thought. Sounds of death echo in your chest. You feel the bite of pain, the taste of it running through you. Following the telling [...]
Night Writer For the Falling Man by Annie Farnsworth I see you again and again tumbling out of the sky, in your slate-grey suit and pressed white shirt. At first I thought you were debris from the explosion, maybe gray plaster wall or fuselage but then I realized that people were leaping. I know who [...]
No, this isn’t a post about Strommie the would-be polygamist who may or may not be being hunted by Kevin, but about another member of the family — our failing guinea pig, Piggy-Wiggy. He’s not eating which, given his normal appetite, is either a sign of the apocalypse or of ill health. He’s not taken [...]
A couple of thoughts on this Veteran’s Day. A little while back I heard a song on The Current that haunted the back of my mind. I heard it again this last week and it’s hold grew on me so that I downloaded it from iTunes. The song is by Eliza Gilkyson, from her Paradise [...]
The Writer’s Almanac had this poem today by Linda Pastan from her book, Queen of a Rainy Country. It’s an apt description of the way I often feel about blogging. Rereading Frost Sometimes I think all the best poems have been written already, and no one has time to read them, so why try to [...]
Lists can be hard things to keep straight; the names of the seven dwarfs, each of the 12 days of Christmas (or all the 12 steps), eight wonders of the world without a catchy rhyme or jingle (I bet you can rattle off the seven ingredients of a Big Mac). Here’s a handy rhyme in [...]
I’m leaving for Missouri tomorrow so I can celebrate the 50th wedding anniversary of my Uncle Bob and Aunt Joyce with the rest of my family. I’ve got a lot to do today before I leave however, including finishing tomorrow’s Fundamentals in Film offering, so this may be my only post today. My kids call [...]
The Answer by Rudyard Kipling A Rose, in tatters on the garden path, Cried out to God and murmured ‘gainst His Wrath, Because a sudden wind at twilight’s hush Had snapped her stem alone of all the bush. And God, Who hears both sun-dried dust and sun, Had pity, whispering to that luckless one, “Sister, [...]
I saw this posted by Aelfheld over at Gall & Wormwood, who originally received it from Dan Howell. It made for a good ending to a long day. The young mother set her foot on the path of life. “Is this the long way?” she asked. And the guide said “Yes, and the way is [...]
