by the Night Writer I saw the following poem on The Writer’s Almanac the other day and thought it was pretty good. Naming My Daughter (In the Uruba tribe of Africa, children are named not only at birth but throughout their lives by their characteristics and the events that befall them.) The one who took [...]
Closest to the Heart When the dust had settled, He took it in His mighty hand, and squeezed it close together, and then breathed life into a man. He saw that one was not enough, that man alone was just a part, so God fashioned woman from a rib, closest to the heart. That’s why [...]
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 [...]
Time of passage, time is passing, the leaves are here and gone. Turn the page, start an age, and hear the faint old song. Distant rhythm, always driven like the thread that weaves the linen, Soft but binding, knit but winding, what wondrous cloth we’re given! Go and come back, give and get back, but [...]
I’ve felt like this before. The nausea, simultaneously sweating and shivering, knowing that something was about to happen and it wouldn’t be good. Then it was being crammed into the landing craft, Pressing toward Omaha Beach, held in place by the shoulders of the men on either side of me, eyes fixed on the door [...]
“A poet who reads his verse in public may have other bad habits.” — Robert Heinlein A couple of decades ago I was in a local Toastmasters club and entered a district “Tall Tale” contest. Our recent spate of snowy weather caused me to remember my winning entry: The Blizzard of ‘82 I tell my [...]
I had a little lunch with the Llama Butchers today and found this intriguing link to the SPAM-ku page; a web-site devoted to haiku about SPAM®. No, not the annoying email, but the delightful pork particle product from our own Austin, Minnesota! Reading through the site which features more than 19,000 poems to SPAM really [...]
A memorial written for another’s unborn son. Cowboy Song The cowboy’s found his way to the high plateau, where there’s blue sky above and gold clouds below; where the grass waves to him, and he rides like the wind, with a smile on his face as if he’s never known sin. His horse is named [...]
The Missouri foothills have been both the home and final resting place for my family going back seven generations. Along about the 1850s Thomas Ryerson was the first in the line to settle in the Oak Hill community to try and pull a living out of hardscrabble ground. He married a Souders girl, and others [...]
When the dust had settled, He took it in His mighty hand, and squeezed it close together, and then breathed life into a man. He saw that one was not enough, that man alone was just a part, and so fashioned woman from a rib, closest to the heart. That’s why she knows the rhythm, [...]
