an old writer and his words

  • The question of the day is would you rather be a turtle or a snail, not to be sung to any melody by Paul Simon. Think carefully, for one day the question will have real impact and you will get your answer with a permanence that merits the most careful consideration. Today may or may…

    Lou Faber

  • SUMMER SONGS

    the dangling green orbs hang beneath the verdant leaves dreaming of summer. sweat rolls down my back the noon sun stares angrily forgotten winter evening sky darkens is it the approach of night or simple summer rain?

    Lou Faber

  • 33,000

    As 33,000 feet, you want the smoothness that experience tells you, the sky will once again deny. Strapped in, you contemplate cursing the gods of travel, but no, they are simply meeting your expectations. Getting this close to heaven was once, she says, a mystical and spiritual experience, but then we transcended all of that…

    Lou Faber

  • SEE COWS

    The manatees hide just below the surface sticking up their heads every few minutes, for a breath or to thrill the tourists who watch intently, because it is a thing to do in this part of Florida in winter. The restaurants in the harbor don’t mind, it draws a crowd and takes pressure off the…

    Lou Faber

  • BUDDHA NATURE

    A singe egret sits calmly on the lowest branch of a long barren tree, where hours from now a thousand birds will arrive for still another evening and night. He stares at me as I am mindfully vacuuming, watching carefully. I pause and ask if by chance he is a Buddha and he lifts his…

    Lou Faber

  • APART-IAL EXPLANATION

    It is all to often debated what sets humans apart the other species, and that will not be agreed any time soon (which a cynic would note is one such thing itself). Freud would claim it is only our ego, our sense of self, which may explain why people are so capable of being self-…

    Lou Faber

  • NUMBER 9?

    The truly sad thing is not that billions were spent on the voyage to our most distant planet only to discover, on arrival it wasn’t a planet at all, merely a dwarf, a near planet and yet there was no rebate for the downgrade. Life is too often like that, you want a mulligan and…

    Lou Faber

  • PRAYER

    We bow our heads and utter words not to the cicada speaking through a spring night or the beetle crawling slowly across the leaf searching for the edge. We bid the crow silent, the cat mewling his hunger, just to crawl under a porch awaiting morning, the child to sleep. The stream flows slowly by,…

    Lou Faber

  • SATURDAY MORNING, WINTER

    The radio is suddenly blaring and the clock of the stove says seven o’clock but the window retorts it is winter when there is no time. You pull up your collar as you prepare to leave. At the store, pick up a baguette, it will go well with a pork tenderloin with a sauce of…

    Lou Faber

  • 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…

    Lou Faber