Month: January 2021

My grandson lives just a couple of blocks from a walkway over the main highway through town, U.S. Route 54. I drug him from his video game to walk over the bridge with me, trading my solitude in the golf course for loud traffic and a small child spinning in a forward direction for two…

There were signs before. It started decades ago, in the volatile years, the wild dancing, the breakfasts at dawn, the years where we were both just cutting loose, not searching for anything in particular, tied to the pursuit and little else. Then the pursuit was over and family happened, marriages, kids – two girls for…

What stars there are huddle in the middle of the sky, aloof and maybe afraid of the city lights, they push through still because the moon has abandoned them, the clouds have abandoned them, the people, warm in their houses, have abandoned them. Like us, they each have a name, a story, a backstory, the…

My daily life is about to change for the next three months as the Legislature convenes next Monday and I resume a semi-solitary existence. Will I write more? Organize the garage? Catalog the stars in the night sky? Pile walnut and hackberry deadfall in my fire pit on still, quiet nights in this small Midwestern…

At the beginning of my walk, I set my pace by inhaling slowly for four steps, then exhaling slowly for the next four steps. That gets everything in sync. After a bit, I slip into my natural gait, which is two and two. Coming back home, like a old horse in a rush to return…

I don’t take these things lightly just because they are in a poem. Light comes from all directions, loops the fanciful around lust and commitment and brings the people who work the land into harmony with those who seek and pray and sing. And those who make poems. There is a giant Black Locust I…

I remember the land, its curve, its solitary sky, its fiery rivers, its inability to hold even the faintest rite of even the faintest spring before its time. It is the land I left and only return to in these quiet nights, in this open field, lit by the lights of a small Midwestern city,…

I have three very unique and wonderful brothers. One is the sort that will call the restaurant during your birthday dinner and pay for your wine over the phone, then text you later and instruct you to have Chartreuse for dessert. The other two brothers would never do that, although they have their own particular…

I’ve been waiting three years for a decent snow. Last night’s walk was pristine, not a breath of wind, not a cloud in the sky save for a small bank in the east glowing orange and pink as the sun sets. The snow marks its territory, covering the remains of 2020, soaking it into the…

There was more to the New Year’s Eve parties than just the food and the second line parade at midnight. A lot happened in-between. But first, a favorite story about prepping for the party. The deep(ish) cleaning took place in the days after Christmas, but the day of the party was its own special kind…