The Shutdown: What Does It Mean?
What was that all about in Washington these past three weeks? Actually, not very much. On the surface the Tea Party forced the Republicans to impose a partial government shutdown in a losing...
View ArticlePERSIAN
My cat wears the white fur of angels making his peace with the snow, or sleeping between bars of sunlight he is at ease trusting three white dogs and his own agility in case of emergency. My white cat...
View ArticleTHE MOUNTAIN
What shall I do now? Follow the sun from its rising into the valley far below or shall I climb higher to better see how far darkness goes and how high these rocks have come from vanished seas? I come...
View ArticleThe Owl
When I was young my grandfather handed me his 22 to shoot the owl perched in the tree I shot the owl who held wide fathomless eyes on me then fluttering fell through the leaves Fifty years later the...
View ArticleWhere Is Wilma Jean McGee?
Cumberland, Cumberland, this land of emerald oak, sycamore and ash, maple, poplar, willow, pine fixed to aged sandstone cliffs that rise and rise through their lush green hide. I have wandered here,...
View ArticleIN FRIENDSHIP for Ed Corkrey
It’s not because I know that seeing behind me is better than anything in front, like the easygoing way you had of being perpetually congenial whenever we sat together through the small hours simply to...
View ArticleDILEMMAS
There are noises, not birds singing but motors humming. I take off my mask and still nobody recognizes me though the sun keeps floating high up in the sky like an abandoned ship. Today short sleeves...
View ArticleYOU CAN TELL
You can tell the temperature’s high because you’re shedding your clothes beneath more sunlight than is needed for reading. Thus you learn things without words when nothing is actually said and...
View ArticleIN KINGDOM COME
a last rite for Giovanna Paciulli 1. You can tell when a woman’s alive as long as her eyes blink and she hasn’t forgotten the words of the language she speaks. Her body can bend to retrieve an impulse...
View ArticleKINDRED
for Ashley My grandfather couldn’t speak the language I know. When he talked he mumbled. Yet some days were happier when I thought he was singing. My grandfather pumped gas for a living and wrote love...
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