If I were to walk two hours in the heat, carrying my canvases through wild blackberries into the heart of the grass seed fields, and spend the day painting while hunger gnaws at my bones, and then come home exhausted with no means for my bills, and if you found me here, sitting on my only chair, ministered by angels and haunted by ghosts, what would you say to me? […]
To the angry and ignorant, even love is a conspiracy. And if indeed it is so, I say, let us all perish by it! “Mysterious Ways” Recently Banned Literature, February 21, 2017 Kiss Upon Kiss Embracing one another, we forgot to hate, and forgot to vote, and were so grateful for the moment, that seeing us that way, our children gathered around, and somehow this set us all to […]
To my mind, John Muir is a poet of the wilderness in the most divine literary sense — his praise and gratitude for the natural world is a song as sublime, inspirational, and wise as any sung by Homer or Whitman; in his hands, a journal entry seems the work of angels, here to recall man from the nightmare of his blind, narrow self. Muir is explorer, artist, scientist, dreamer, […]
Will the doves choose the fig tree for their nest? They were back again yesterday afternoon, settled peacefully in the same place, which would safely support a new home. Maybe if they are left undisturbed long enough, they will decide to stay. Then again, considering the way they watch us through the kitchen window, they might also be angels. Earlier in the day, I rode with our eldest son up […]
What of someone who is happy and joyful, but unable to communicate, while those around him assume he is miserable and sad? And what of those who are miserable and sad, who assume everyone else is? Early morning the day after Christmas — not one soul out to see the frosty rooftops. I saw, or think I saw, an eagle in the neighbor’s fir tree the other day. But it […]
Captured in the same breath, so to speak, as “So Many Angels,” I wrote and published two things the following morning. Both strike me as worth preserving. This is the first. Between the Ivy and the Big Rhododendron Yesterday morning in the kitchen we were talking about our old cat, Joe, and how at peace with the world he was in his declining years, which he spent in our […]
I love how an old poem like this will suddenly bubble up, seemingly from nowhere. I had forgotten about it completely when an angel-friend shared it online a few weeks ago. And it may well be that she has forgotten that by now. And forgetting recalls another art — that of letting go. So Many Angels So many angels in our lives — the doctor, the mailman, the cashier, […]
My first thought this morning: If I slept like a rock, it is a rock that dreams. My second thought: If I slept like an angel, it could mean anything. No Foothold No foothold on the brooding rock, or memory of the climb, only joy in stepping off, and these awkward wings of mine. Recently Banned Literature, August 7, 2014 [ 395 ]
Winter is the perfect time to start a regimen of cold early-morning showers. I begin with water that is lukewarm. Then, as I wash, I steadily move to cool. I finish in cold. I enjoy the cold phase for three minutes or so. The result? Any soreness, stiffness, or sluggishness I might have had is gone, and I am ready and raring to go. Best of all, the mind is […]
There’s one thing I’ve become convinced of over the years: we are all angels, and we are all mirrors. What Others See Somewhere, in a fairy tale beside a dream, there is a boy who swallows a firefly, and a girl with seven knees. Beautiful knees her jealous mother tries to hide. The firefly lives inside the boy, makes his hair and fingers glow. The boy and girl meet: I […]
