• ASKED AND ANSWERED

    Only the ducks remain, and they aren’t saying. Ask a Muscovy where all the ibis have gone and he will say, “good riddance, they’re ugly and get in the way.” Ask of the pelicans  and they will remind you that now there are more fish, and they’ll be back eventually, but things are much calmer…


  • WALKING

    Like the Anasazi’s sudden departure from his cliff dwelling I too snuck away, with hardly any trace from a life no longer in clear recollection, only faint images survive, of hours in the City Lights Bookstore reading Corso, Ferlinghetti and Ginsberg, then buying the slim volume “Gasoline” not because it was my greatest desire, but…


  • MY REFLECTIONS

    Each morning I stare into the mirror and see the same white hair and wonder who I will be today and what I was on all of those other mornings. I ask the mirror what life has in store for me this day but it only smirks, never answers as if it knows something I…


  • FROZEN

    At 4:53 this morning, all of the clocks stopped. Time simply froze although we kept moving, going on with our lives. But time ceased to matter at all. That was fine with us. For the first time in memory, we did not grow older, for no time had passed. It was a strange feeling, one…


  • UNTO TARSHISH

    In this place there is a fatted, sacrificial silence. It is the large Jewish Cemetery nestling the road where Maryland and the District are loosely stitched together. It is a small plot goldenrod dirt outskirting Lisbon. This ground is sacred not for the blessing of one who has taken the tallit of holiness. The sanctity…


  • WALKING

    Like the Anasazi’s sudden departure from his cliff dwelling I too snuck away, with hardly any trace from a life no longer in clear recollection, only faint images survive, of hours in the City Lights Bookstore reading Corso, Ferlinghetti and Ginsberg, then buying the slim volume “Gasoline” not because it was my greatest desire, but…


  • WHISPERED SONG

    “Oh, Woman who walks in beauty like the night I am a friend who is distant and silent.” — Dineh Wind Prayer We always sat on the back bench seat of the Collins Avenue bus, stared out the big window, noses pressed against the cool glass, stared at the procession of stucco hotels, simple neon…


  • OBITS

    You read the obituaries every day not only for the confirmation that you are not listed among them. The key five words there are not only for the affirmation, particularly upon hearing the gentle man you liked, but you also valued as a friend and craftsman is gone, and you didn’t say goodbye, that you…


  • APPROACHING NOW

    I’ll be there soon, so hang in there just a bit longer. I do want to meet the beautiful young woman you mentioned in our calls, or is there more than one, because while your vision is supposed to be good, it seems almost all women younger than a certain ever-increasing age are now beautiful…


  • ESQUIRE

    Even as a young child I imagined being a lawyer was a noble profession, spent Sunday evenings in front of the old Motorola TV watching Perry Mason stride up to the rail, stare into the witness’ eyes, with Paul Drake smiling in the first row. I tried to make my younger brother play Paul but…