Photo by Cathaleen Curtiss : Spring : The water ran black in the mornings. . The soil had plenty to say . after being silent for so long. . It wasn’t even... Continue Reading →
Spring
The Photograph
Photo by Federico Bottos via Unsplash : The Photograph : It doesn’t matter what we should have argued about. Talking was something we couldn’t or wouldn’t do. We walked through a meadow instead, you slightly ahead and I taking pictures of things I wanted to remember, including that bloody sunset. The flowers parted before... Continue Reading →
This bruised shadow of a promise
Photo by Denys Argyriou via Unsplash : This bruised shadow of a promise : This bruised shadow . of a promise. I made it. It was meant . ... Continue Reading →
Conversation
Vincent Van Gogh Enclosed Field in the Rain : Conversation : It’s frivolous, this rain, with its …………unreasonable claims ……………………on our silence. You stalk the hallway, I crush …………tears in my fist. ……………………I’ve taken to rearranging books on the shelf, first …………alphabetically, ……………………then by the year of a writer’s …………death. ……………………Orphan books. I seem …………to love... Continue Reading →
The Rose
Photo by Neslihan Gunaydin via Unsplash : The Rose : This hand that holds the trowel, a rubber glove to hide thick-knuckled, restless fingers— you know it’s yours. Yours, also, the knobby knees, the narrow feet in muddy crocs, the loosened skin holding it all together—who knows however long? You are a waterfall of flesh and... Continue Reading →
Death As a New Language
Félix Vallotton La Valse : Death As a New Language : You learn to speak it sooner or later. Sooner or later you succumb to its charm, ready to waltz as it leads you across dimly lit floors. Slender flutes of champagne flash their similes from darkened mirrors. People are gathered by the walls,... Continue Reading →
Amnesia
Photo by Gaelle Marcel via Unsplash :: Amnesia : 1. We’re alone on the brink of this tabletop. ............We rub air between our palms, sweat ............between our bellies. ........................Our voices drop like ripe fruit. In the span of an evening, we lose two former ideas and a half- acquaintance. You dine on fragments of scrolls... Continue Reading →
The Icon
St. John the Theologian : : The Icon : We crouched in the dirt behind the empty church and watered dry lumpy clods with our piss. We laughed at the yellow jets running between our feet, twin rivulets rushing to meet and flood a colony of ants. Disaster, perhaps, on a miniature scale, but not... Continue Reading →
Time Capsule
Photo by Bruno Nascimento via Unsplash : Time Capsule We dug a hole at the back of grandma’s garden, where we had laid bodies to rest in matchstick boxes, each grave with its makeshift cross of twigs and brambles, as if beetles, too, had a god, or a church, or a soul. It was the pull of... Continue Reading →
The Guest
Photo by Martino Pietropoli via Unsplash : The Guest : My house grows small waiting for her to leave. Today I opened the door to the cellar and it wasn’t there. I climbed the staircase to the attic— it ended in a dead wall. The bathroom I’ve been so proud of shrank to the size... Continue Reading →
Winter
Photo by Fabrice Villard via Unsplash : Winter : A woman writes a line in the snow and leaves. Nothing else is new in that quiet field. Large snowflakes seal in her words, an envelope, closing. Next summer, she won't remember what she has written, or why. In the wake of retreating steps, silence keeps the... Continue Reading →
Dreaming in Swiss (Again)
Photo by Linus Nylund on Unsplash : Happy to see my March post Dreaming in Swiss appear on the Ruminate Blog today! "For people feeling overwhelmed by life's frantic pace," says the Ruminate website, "a contemplative and imaginative space changes everything. Join our community, and let's practice staying awake together." Check them out. You won't regret it.
Rip Van Winkle
N. C. Wyeth Rip Van Winkle : Rip Van Winkle : In the evening she sits on the couch. The sunset starts a fire around her head, like a halo. She reads and her hair streams down in black coils past her waist, past her knees. It hesitates when it reaches the floor, but then... Continue Reading →
Murder in the Orchard
Image courtesy of Alan Harris via hiveminer.com : Murder in the Orchard : Nobody wants to handle the dead bird, its beak cracked as an omen. We read a tear, or is it only the implacable glass of the eye, watching? None of us comes even near the limp body in the dirt. We circle... Continue Reading →
Learning from the Swallow
Image courtesy of www.stevegettle.com : A good part of my childhood was spent in my grandmother’s village, where I grew up believing that the mud nests the swallows built under our eaves brought us good luck. More swallow nests meant better luck. I remember the joy when yet another swallow family would choose to raise its young... Continue Reading →
Dreaming in Swiss
Pablo Picasso The Dream : To paraphrase the problem of the Taoist philosopher Chuang Tzu, I may be a woman who has dreamed herself a skunk, or a skunk still dreaming she is a woman. ~ Louise Erdrich “The Blue Jay’s Dance” They say you know you've made it in a different language when you start dreaming... Continue Reading →
