Bearing the name my mother gave herself at approximately the age I am now, and the middle name of her maternal grandmother, great grandmother and two of her aunts, Liza Rose James entered this astral plane at 3:17 pm on Monday, April 12th, weighing in at nine pounds four ounces and 21.5 inches long. It…

You know that lingering smile, before the payphone clicks through, when the moonlight falls like loose change on the bitter blue tiles and the person next to you begins to move like someone you almost remember. Back when dreams made sense. Back when colors ran across the night sky but made no sense at all Plate glass reflects the quick lights…

It was roughly forty years ago I laid my life as a poet at the feet of a roomful of friends gathered in my large bedroom in the large house that would soon become known as the South Central Kansas Center for Peace and Social Justice. Poetry had been my artistic identity since my early…

The sky is a gathering of storms, the river is a casting of jewels, the air is a punishing of all things that long to stand straight and tall, the moon is a waning of all things cold and brittle The redbuds are in full bloom, both flavors, the Eastern and the Okie. Even the…

Someday next month, Liza Rose James will enter this life, carrying the name that you gave yourself, that my son will give in turn to his daughter. The joy of your life, the eighth wonder of your world, your Max, already lives on in his son, Maxwell. I don’t think most children think much about…

I’ve never grown berry vines before, unless the grape arbor on Holyoke counts. I put in two black raspberry plants last year and they sprouted out beautifully just last week. I realized I had to get serious about some sort of trellis They’re at the back of the main raised bed, the side that’s not…

“When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.”—Dom Helder Camara We fall behind, the pace is grueling, we can only cover so much ground, there is only so much time, there is only so much we can…

Clear the trampled decks, cast off the cruel yokes of winter, uproot the unwieldy remnants of the season past, take the brown and blackened beds firmly by the shoulders and gently shove them back to their greenest, most golden glory This morning, there were serious gardening plans and skies seriously heavy with not just a…

Rarely does the first day of Spring actually feel like the first day of Spring, but it’s happening this year. Just this week there are brown buds opening to the softest greens, early bulbs breaking through winter earth, morning air sifting in through still-bare trees, sharp on the skin but gentle on the spirit Crows…

I had a poster of Violeta Parra for years before I finally heard this song. I just knew that she was the John Lomax of Chile, and that she was a great influence on Victor Jara, whose music I did know I give thanks to life, she says. Que ha me dado tanto. That has…