an old writer and his words

  • HAT

    It is hard for even me to remember that there once was a time when every man wore at hat, whether a simple watch cap or Greek fisherman’s hat, a fedora to be avoided if you value your life, a bowler of great propriety. I wear a simple Nepalese hat a reversible pillbox style, and…

    Lou Faber

  • INTO THE TIDE

    The woman at the next table stares at her fork with eyes which appear bottomless pools of sorrow. She picks at the noodles, raises and lowers the glass of wine without sipping. She is lost within herself and even the waiter approaches with trepidation for fear of falling in and drowning in her sadness. In…

    Lou Faber

  • ALONG THE WAY

    They walk slowly, each step measured as to both length and cadence. The need not speak, they have long been synchronous, now cannot avoid being so without great effort. They say nothing, words have grown superfluous, and would only interrupt the slow procession of the clouds, the ducks swimming against the river’s flow, the birds…

    Lou Faber

  • ARF, HE SAID

    Growing up my family always had dogs, only one at a time, of course, since we were a modern suburban family, which may be why we had a dog. It clearly wasn’t because they loved dogs, they tolerated them on good days, ignored them the rest of the time and the good days were few…

    Lou Faber

  • ON THE SEDGE

    My wife pauses by the placard in the nature preserve and tells me that what I have been calling grasses are in fact a sedge known as sawgrass. She points out the warning that it’s serrated on the edge and earned its name from those who grasped it without knowing or thinking first. I feign…

    Lou Faber

  • ISLAND FEVER

    “It’s the difference between anthracite and lignite,” he said with a sort of all-knowing smirk. “Quite the contrary,” she snapped back “It’s the difference between pahoehoe and aa.” He clearly wasn’t pleased,” those examples are like night and day, and you’re in the dark.” “You can’t begin to tell between makai and mauka, but I…

    Lou Faber

  • REQUIREMENT

    She moves with the fluidity that suggests she has been trained as a dancer, though she denies it, says that she has no interest in dance, barely tolerates music and then only because it sometimes is a requirement. She smiles, though it doesn’t seem at all natural to her, more another thing she does because…

    Lou Faber

  • AROUND EVERY CORNER

    They hide in corners, and you think you can see them, but you cannot be certain for they are vague and could be no more than wishes, but belief is sufficient. As you grow older, the number of corners grow and a universe of but eight corners is now itself tucked in a corner of…

    Lou Faber

  • JUMPING OFF POINT

    She says the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. He doesn’t have the heart to tell her That on a cosmic scale space is curved and no one wants the short straw anyway. She can, of course, read him, a skill she knows is reserved for women and is one of frustration…

    Lou Faber

  • WHAT’S IN A NAME?

    He is four, he announces to all gathered at the extended family table that he will be five soon, in January. It is important that we know this just as it is important that he sit next to his cousin, for boys like he should always sit next to cute girls and sisters don’t count,…

    Lou Faber