• AGAIN, AGAIN

    It is the seasonagain.It is always the season,and everythingis now interpretation,relativity rules.Once truthwas absolute,it was notmalleable, fluidseen through a lensno one possesses,only asking faith.Deafnessis an escapeout of its reachand it will bethis way each dayuntil the election.It willagain be the season.Rinse andrepeat.


  • BACKROADS

    When you drive on back roadsyou develop a differentsense of direction, of place.You know you’re in the Southby the trees, Spanish mosshanging like heavy rainand stealing the leavesof smaller trees, andall manner of thingshanging from or affixedbetween trees, a tire swing,something passing for a hammockand endless clotheslinesannouncing that herethe seasons are measuredby rainfall and temperaturesthat…


  • LEAVING

    They don’t do that here,the leaves do not demand to be seenonly in their chosen seasonsand their palette is self-limited.There is no budding in spring,no malus or prunus throwing offwild cascades of white and pinkpainting the ground around them.There is no riot of coloras summer retreats and winterplans its eventual arrival,blazing reds and oranges,yellow, ochers…


  • THAT SUMMER

    That summer was onehe would always remember.She was special, she told him soand he had no reasonto doubt her. Thatand he was one to fallso easily into whathe thought was love.It lasted well into August,when she said it was over.He did not understand whybut he was not one to argueso he consigned herto a memory…


  • A QUICKLY PASSING SEASON

    That summer was onehe would always remember.She was special, she told him soand he had no reasonto doubt her. Thatand he was one to fallso easily into whathe thought was love.It lasted well into Augustwhen she said it was over.He did not understand whybut he was not one to argueso he consigned herto a memory…


  • RISING TIME

    Night rises slowlyfrom tangled rootsdragging ocher and rustfrom reluctant trees,promising only winter.We cannot see this,we sense only time eroding,slipping off untilthe trees are naked.They want onlyto hide themselvesin a shimmering gownof snow, recallingtheir verdancy, imagininganother season, a seasonof hope, a seasonof consecration, of light,of resurrection.We stand emotionallystripped on the banksof the stream into whichwe cannot…


  • PLAYIN’ WHAT’S NOT THERE

    Some say Miles said it’s the space between the notes –that’s where the music is.We heard him, we smiled,we anticipated the nextnote and the next.Outside my windowa blue jayrecites his morning prayer,the child’s laughbreaks the frozen skyand shivers the maple.Then all is silence –even the windholds its breathnot in anticipationbut to create the voidthat nature…


  • A FROSTY RECEPTION

    I truly wish Robert Frost was still aliveso I could ask him where he foundthat yellow wood of his poem.The woods I know are mostly pinein the Adirondacks, or mixed hardwoodsand when autumn arrives they greet itin shades of green, red, orangeochre and yes, some yellow,but hardly enough to givethe forest that titular color.And even…


  • STORM

    We walked slowly alongfeet sinking in the sandafter waves swallowed the sun.We could smell its approachbefore the first winds sweptashore pushing sands againstbeach chairs turned for night.Two dogs ran over dunesknowing what would come,drawn by clatter of hammersplacing plywood shuttersover windows and doors.Clouds, an ebony pall, gatheredmocking, waiting for a momentwhen the lid would be…


  • STOICS

    This afternoon the vulture couplesit stoically on the limbsof the long dead tree in the preserve. The rain was torrentialas we watched from the dryconfines of our home, theystood soaked to the featherswith nowhere to hide, knowingthey couldn’t out fly or out climbthe purging clouds, so they setsoaking wet and stared at us. And then…