an old writer and his words

  • AN OFF YEAR

    The was a winter, once where even in the north the snow refused to fall and ice rejected jamming the culverts, the sky stared down in amazement. That was the year trees would not bud and flowers fled deeper into the sweetness of the earth, grass singed and lay indolent. It was a year my…

    Lou Faber

  • AGING GRACELESSLY

    To know the road ahead ask those coming back. — Chinese Proverb I have progressed to the point that I no longer mark time in neat segments based on rotation of this world about that, now I am measured against those around me, I seek those with whom I share an age. It is best…

    Lou Faber

  • ADIRONDACK EVENING

    Atop the hill the trees are filigree against the fading light. The tents are fireflies twinkling as night reclaims the earth. I am caught up in the chill watching my breath kiss the stars. First Appeared in Blueline, Vol. 22, 2001. Reprinted in Legal Studies Forum, Vol. 29, No. 1, 2005

    Lou Faber

  • MARKED

    The oddest thing about being Buddhist is what I once was, and not just in a prior life. Born, it turns out, and adopted into a secular Jewish family, I must still be Jewish even if I might have lapsed back to secularity, they say, because my Jewishness is a mark, Cain-like it seems, though…

    Lou Faber

  • COGITO

    She said, “I truly think that a large part of your problem is that you spend too much time thinking about what other people think of you.” He wasn’t inclined to agree, but she did think that so he had to give it consideration. “I don’t think so,” he replied, “but if you think so,…

    Lou Faber

  • BACKSTREET TEMPLE

    The afternoon sun glares off the polished roof tiles the bells strung on the pagoda of the small temple tinkle in the wind. There are so few birds in Osaka. First Appeared in Japanophile, Vol. 24, No. 1, 2000.

    Lou Faber

  • AGING

    She would have been, what … does it matter anymore, frozen in time at that last age before time ceased to matter and images became locked and only the viewer grew older but glad at least for that. The only thing worse than getting older is not she once said, then as was her fashion,…

    Lou Faber

  • THE TRIO

    The big man caresses the bass and the strings pour out caramel and cocoa. Ulysses strokes the skins which sing the melody and mind the rhythm. The keys of the Steinway whisper to him play me, play me and even the 89th key finally joins in the song.

    Lou Faber

  • HAVING WRIT, MOVED ON

    She says she sees the whole book in her head before she kills it putting pen to paper. It is there, she says where it dies immovable on the page. I invite the words onto the page as well and hope they take a life of their own expressing my intentions if not my thoughts…

    Lou Faber

  • AT THE MARGINS

    Horizons are the thing we have they greatest trouble with. They are omnipresent, immutable and yet move at our approach. They are at once inviting and fear inducing, though now we are largely convinced they do not mark the edge of a precipice over which we would catapult into some endless abyss crossing their margin.…

    Lou Faber