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LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER, NOT
My mother used to say, about most anything, “Stop, you’ve had your fill.” It was something she did by rote, dictated I was certain then, by some timer buried deep within her that brought forth the phrase like the beep of an oven timer to indicate whenever she was baking was certain to be just…
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A MESSAGE HOME
What I want to tell her is this: it’s fitting, perfectly, that you who so assiduously hid the past from me, your past and mine, now bars your entry, refusing you even the briefest glimpse. You want so to grab onto it to have it carry you to a place removed from here by time…
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ASTROGEN
I could never understand as a child why the moon was female, the sun always male, and most stars but ours had Arabic names. Now makes much more sense to me, the moon is never one to hog the sky and even when she commands more than her usual space, you only want to stare…
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EARLY IN THE SECOND BOOK
She wrapped him carefully in an old blanket and several sections of the Times and put him in the basket with the broken handle she found out behind the Safeway near the culvert that was home until the rains came. She placed him among the weeds and beer bottles, where the river’s smell licked the…
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EDISON, GO TO HELL
My mother was a firm believer In lecturing, offering vast bits of knowledge, culled from here and there. One of her favorites was Edison’s 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration, and she leaned toward quantity, “It’s all about hard work, go clean your room, clutter will get you nowhere.” Sitting here today amid what I prefer to…
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ETUDE
Today was perfectly ordinary which is how I would have my days and how they so seldom agreed to be. I did pause and look at the Yamaha keyboard and remembered that when the Court of the Empress Theresa rejected Mozart, he attended the symphonies of Haydn as a form of consolation. That reminds me…
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LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER
My mother no longer speaks to me. It is not that she has been dead two years, that passage would hardly be an impediment for her. I would like to think she has nothing left to say, having said it all so many times in the past. Some say we will see each other again…
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GAZING
As a child I would often stare up into the night sky. The stars, the planets, at least the two I knew I could see. My parents didn’t think my behavior odd, they assumed I wanted to be a scientist and explore the universe. I let them believe this. It was far easier than explaining…
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NATURE SPEAKS
Along the shore, this morning, the clouds piled up, refusing entry to the promised sun, which hung back forlorn. The waves charged onto the sand like so many two-year-olds in full tantrum, banging against all in sight and retreating, only to charge again, pushing away any and all in their path. The wind pummels the…
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THE QUESTION
If my mother was here she would ask me what I have to say for myself. Just this once, I would remain silent, for there is nothing that needs saying and she would be certain that if there were she should be the one to say it, but silence would drive her mad. So perhaps…
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an old writer and his words 