• GET A ROOM

    In the park the ginkgoes, male and female, separated by the path, are putting on their leaves. Soon the squirrels, eternal voyeurs, will gather on their branches to watch them mating.


  • EDGY

    It is a precarious balance, really, more an exercise in tottering and teetering than and standing still. Some prefer stasis, others, I included, find it leads inevitably to a loss of energy, to an entropy from which it is difficult to escape. I don’t walk along the edge of the precipice, but I do peer…


  • PHYSICS

    She is seven, going on some much larger number. She believes in the tooth fairy. She believes in the scientific method. She believes in vegetarianism and ecology. She believes in helping her parents and was doing so when she found her baby teeth in a small bag in their dresser. She no longer believes in…


  • WALKING

    Like the Anasazi’s sudden departure from his cliff dwelling I too snuck away, with hardly any trace from a life no longer in clear recollection, only faint images survive, of hours in the City Lights Bookstore reading Corso, Ferlinghetti and Ginsberg, then buying the slim volume “Gasoline” not because it was my greatest desire, but…


  • FOR THE BIRDS

    It is incredibly frustrating that no matter how long I spend in discussion with the egret, he will tell me nothing of his life, of what it is like to be able to perch on long legs, and then take glorious flight. The limpkin will speak endlessly on this topic, but he really has nothing…


  • OH, NOAH

    It has rained for uncounted days on end and we half expect one of our neighbors to begin building an ark, so we look through the falling drops for pets to line up in double file ranks, seeking selection for a journey they know must be coming. Overhead, the dove sits in the maple knowing…


  • RINZAI PLANTS A PINE

    If you have a seed in your pocket what will you do with it? Even a small seed planted carefully in the middle of a forest may take hold and grow. Tamp the soil with your toe three times, three times again secure in knowing this tree will never provide you shade. A reflection on…


  • MARC MY WORDS

    You were born 128 years ago, not a long time in the history of the planet and a blink in the life of the universe but two good lifetimes on the day you came into the world, not knowing what would become your place in it. We celebrate you today, as we celebrated you during…


  • In any half respectable pub in Galway, and in Ireland the county of place hardly matters, when enough pints have been passed, and night grows thick, even such as I, claiming to be part Irish, claiming two left feet, can feel the ceili deep within, and step out on the floor to do what I…


  • FOREVER, ALMOST

    It is a large boulder in the middle of a rutted path. That path leads nowhere in particular. It comes to an end at the edge of what appears to be a dense forest. Several trees are posted with “Do Not Trespass” signs, long faded until you must stare to make out the words. The…