an old writer and his words

  • MOURNING ASCENDANT

    When they lowered my grandmother’s casket into the sodden earth, there wasn’t a dry eye or shoulder, or leg around. Sophie would have gotten a good laugh, her children always too busy for a visit getting soaked to the skin, in a cold, windy downpour, all but me, the one she chose to conduct the…

    Lou Faber

  • PLACES

    My mother, the goddess of cliches, was overly fond of repeating that “There’s a place for everything, and everything should be in its place.” I must admit that, in addition to hating her cliches and platitudes, I grew ever less certain of my place in her world. She was more than willing to assume my…

    Lou Faber

  • THIRD EYE, NEEDING GLASSES

    You ask me what is the first thing I can remember, and seem surprised when I tell you memory is much like a Buddhist river, never the same twice. Memory is a stage and I am one to forget my lines, today it’s the window in the back of a Miami Beach bus amazed at…

    Lou Faber

  • WITHOUT BEES

    In the photograph the two great blue heron’s stare at each other. We are not certain if this is love, or there is something far more ominous impending. Birds have a way of being inscrutable, and herons are often mistaken for cranes, although I cannot imagine a senbazuru of herons. In the photo, their beaks…

    Lou Faber

  • AND WHAT IS LEFT BEHIND

    She calls them around her bedside but they stand back fearful of the withered ghost hovering on the sheets, until one, eldest, touches her extended hand with a finger as if passed through a flame. I will be leaving soon she tells them, if not tomorrow then a day later and I will take the…

    Lou Faber

  • ORPHAN

    I was a foundling wandering from Guinness Stout to Ouzo and back, in search of identity. In Schul I would cry out to Him asking, “Who am I?” and He would answer, “you are, you are.” The balalaika of my mother’s grandfather sounded tinny, a cacophony lost in Oporto, Lisboa. On the streets of Vienna…

    Lou Faber

  • NO DIFFERENCE

    He said: I took the road less travelled by and still haven’t found my way home. I need some space she said, slowly unfolding herself. He replied: I’ll give you all of Montana if you want, all but Bozeman, that I’m keeping for myself.

    Lou Faber

  • UNTIL DEATH

    They sit placidly on two small chairs placed by the steps of the Great Shrine each in the wedding clothes their families have worn for generations too many to count. I stand, out of the picture, leaning on the gate, telephoto lens extended and gently push down until I hear the click. They smile as their fingers…

    Lou Faber

  • THOUGHT HARBOR

    I harbored the thought one day becoming a monk, and not only because saffron robes would be well within my usual color choices. I knew it was a pipe dream, I love, too deeply, to disavow, life and I’m sure my past lives wouldn’t take all that long to catch up with me, karma can…

    Lou Faber

  • A CONVERSATION

    She said, “You’re breaking my heart,” as though it was a small twig which, stepped upon, splinters with a small pop, pieces flying in opposition, lost on the forest floor, waiting patiently for the next errant step to further subdivide until the bits are indistinguishable and slowly rot into the soil. I said, “My emotions…

    Lou Faber