Archives
I must start my post by acknowledging the effect of watching John Lewis’ funeral. I won’t say very much, some of the world’s best people have spoken and written appropriately fine things about the man and what he represents. I just want to say that the two and one-half hours I spent with John Lewis’ family, friends, colleagues and admirers at Ebenezer Baptist Church this morning gave me hope—something harder and harder… Read More
On our summer vacation, Celia, Sara and I were scheduled to be in Kruger National Park in South Africa yesterday. At least we were in Plan A. I think that had changed to Lilongwe, Malawi in Plan B. However, as you all know the world has reverted to Plan X…so instead I went to MVD NOW to renew my driver’s license.
Yesterday’s post was all about my need for rain. So it rained last night…that was after I ran naked and screaming ‘let there be rain’ through the streets, in and out of the traffic, into the gas station for a Twinkie…up Eubank to Montgomery…knocked on Scarpa’s door for a take-out pizza (which got all soggy on the way home). Maybe I didn’t do that. But it did rain. I couldn’t find just… Read More
I love everything about this poem, especially how it reminds me of Minnesota in April. SPRING STORM BY William Carlos Williams The sky has given over its bitterness. Out of the dark change all day long rain falls and falls as if it would never end. Still the snow keeps its hold on the ground. But water, water from a thousand runnels! It collects swiftly, dappled with black cuts a way for… Read More
My goal here is not to write prose of which I’ll later be proud…oh sure that would be nice but right now I can barely remember the alphabet. My goal is to keep track of this never-to-be-repeated year in my or my children’s or grandchildren’s lifetimes. Hopefully. A couple years from now I want to leaf through my blog book for 2020 and say ‘you know that wasn’t so bad…I learned x… Read More
How to love New Mexico again…with the passion I felt for this place the first years I lived here. Sometimes it’s easy. Yesterday morning for example. Steven and I walked from the river crossing above Rio Bravo south to Rio Bravo and back. Five and one-half miles. Starting just before 6 am and winding up at Modelos for a burrito and pineapple Fanta breakfast. Perfect. The bike path going down, right along… Read More
My friend Bob and I were going to be at the Other Bob’s concert last night. Damn virus. Since we’re all playing ‘Shelter From the Storm’ these days as a wishful-thinking exercise…here it is. Shelter From the Storm ‘Twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood When blackness was a virtue the road was full of mud I came in from the wilderness, a creature void of form Come in, she… Read More
Steven’s the younger brother, the baby of our family. He just had a birthday, one of the many that are turning him into an aging baby…still the youngest though, and you know how they are…the babies/little brothers/littlest kids…really cute, but spoiled, right? And sometimes you wonder if they’ll ever grow out of a certain amount of coyness… Steve, I didn’t want to bring this up on your birthday but… about that toilet… Read More
Bread by Mahmoud Darwish From early dusk the day was inscrutableThe sun shows up, lazy as usualA mineral ash, eastward, blocks the horizon. . .In the veins of cloudsIn household pipesThe water was hard. . .A desperate autumn in the life of BeirutDeath spread from the palaceto the radio to the salesman of sexTo the vegetable marketWhat is it wakes you now?Exactly five o’clockAnd thirty people killedGo back to sleepIt is a… Read More
End of April, first week of May, friend Bob and I were going to be doing Broadway…he being a serious aficionado of Broadway musicals and me loving the modest number I’ve seen over the years. Bob Dylan’s Girl from the North Country was the central attraction but Dear Evan Hansen, West Side Story, and Hadestown were awaiting our presence as well. Spring in New York/New York, music, food, wandering…doesn’t get any better… Read More