an old writer and his words

  • SENĀTUS POPULUSQUE RŌMĀNUS

    As we walked slowly through the Forum the Coliseum receding into the late afternoon, the Virgins stood patiently as befits a priestess trained to avoid the stares of passing men, even tourists such as we were, the columns staring down reminding us of our youth despite the birthdays that we celebrated with the joy of…

    Lou Faber

  • HUP TWO

    In his dreams he is still marching across endless paved paths on an Air Force Base that might be Texas or might just be hell. In his recollection, in July there is virtually no difference between the two. He stirs each time his Drill Instructor bellows, which is every few minutes, likely seconds in this…

    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

  • A CLIO MOMENT

    Each morning I should take a moment and seriously question whether I have any history or should want any. Each day I know in that moment that I have the option of being reborn, of being someone who never existed before, and the price of this is shedding all of my former selves, an erasure…

    Lou Faber

  • GOD HAS COME, OR NOT

    It is the wet season when the rains wash the village carrying off the detritus of poverty. On the adobe wall of the ancient town hall some villagers say a face appeared one morning. To some it was the face of Christ to others that of an old man a former mayor, perhaps, to most…

    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

  • IN TRANSIT

    Mom died, the text message read, similar words we’ve been hearing too frequently but always leaving us with the same hopelessness. The words my brother, estranged now, estranged then, come to think of it, said two years ago in a quickly left phone message. I thought of confronting him, but when he never answered, I…

    Lou Faber

  • ON LANDING

    They have a youth that you think should make you envious, poured into clothing that would be a second skin, if skin were silk and polyester, patterned tights hair ironed straight, colored highlights and you still recall when this what a fascinated you, when you would have found it alluring. You probe the corners of…

    Lou Faber

  • REFLECTIONS

    An elk stands at the edge of a placid mountain lake and sees only the clouds of an approaching winter. A black bear leans over the mirrored surface of the lake and sees only the fish that will soon be his repast. The young man draped in saffron robes looks calmly into the water and…

    Lou Faber