Author’s Note: “This might be a story about loss, about acceptance, or about grace. It all depends on the reader. Each person sees what they need to see in a story, or on a street.” Odd ... [Continue Story]
Author’s note: “The story of Tahlequah carrying her dead calf for 17 days rivets and shatters me. Anthropogenic factors including pollution and depletion of chinook salmon have put this group of whales on the Endangered Species list. Every birth is vital. Tahlequah’s calf lived just half an hour. Each time she surfaced to breathe, she ... [Continue Story]
Author’s Note: “After losing my mother to cancer when I was twelve years old, the cemetery where she is buried became a complicated place for me of expectation and mystery. When I became a mother ... [Continue Story]
Author’s Note: “While on sailing trip on the Chesapeake Bay, I became interested in nautical knots. Their use. Their names. Their configurations. The Anchor Hitch led me here.” A Knot That Holds Another husband to bury, and not yet 60. Sleepless, the dogs can’t settle down, whining in their crates, waiting for him to slip… [Continue Story]
Author’s Note: “Last March, writing a daily sonnet offered the structure to channel mounting anxiety fed by the news. The goal of five iambic feet per ... [Continue Story]
Author’s Note: I wrote this poem after attending a week-long silent meditation retreat at a place called Mt. Eden, at a time when I felt the way Eve might have felt after being kicked out of ... [Continue Story]
Author’s Note: Originally, I wrote this poem for Iranians who were killed during the peaceful protest on November 15, 2019 and those people who died in the Ukrainian airplane shot down in Tehran, on ... [Continue Story]
Author’s Note: I wrote this essay as my granddaughter was preparing to live with me for several months during the pandemic. I’d never been alone with her for an extended period⎯her mother, my ... [Continue Story]
Author’s Note: I wrote “Learn to Sail” in a poetry workshop. The assignment was to write about an instance where you misunderstood what was said. Just then a woman poked her head in the door, saying... [Continue Story]
Author’s note: In 1950’s Southern California, Mom didn’t have much money to spend on my birthday, so boys were invited to wear tattered clothes, smudge their faces, and join a nighttime gathering of “hobos” roasting hot dogs over a crackling campfire in our backyard. No wonder I later thumbed around America and hopped freights to New Orleans. My wanderlust eventually led me to haul my backpack around the world….as you’ll discover... [Continue Story]
