an old writer and his words

  • WORMHOLE LOGIC

    Getting a headache, are we? You feel like Schrodinger’s cat. It’s really like asking yourself if the Big Bang was the beginning of everything, what was there in that split second before the Big Bang? If God created everything, what created God? If time begins with the Big Bang, what time was it before there…

    Lou Faber

  • CITIZEN OF . . .

    There was a time that nowseems so very long ago, when Iwould freely admit, sometimes claimto be American, if not acknowledgingmy time in the Air Force as well. Those days are gone, as is the placeI knew, now morphed into somewheremuch the same, and entirely unrecognizable,and I am American by proximity, knowingmy welcome has been…

    Lou Faber

  • UNANSWERED

    As strange as it seems, I canspend hours in a used bookstorelost in the marginalia, and textbooks, particularly those in psych and sociologyare generally the most fertile,for those students, though they would never admit it, pursued those fieldshoping to find answers to their ownproblems without having to ask. Yesterday’s visit was particularly fertile,but it was…

    Lou Faber

  • REMEMBER THIS

    He awoke this morning, and wassurprised to be there, he said,because when you are ninety,and can’t get around at all,you don’t look forward to tomorrow,for it will simply be a repeatof today when nothing will happen.And it is harder still, he says,because he can’t remember much anymore,so it’s hard to say if todayis any different…

    Lou Faber

  • PAYING HOMAGE

    No one thinks it all that strangethat novels featuring James Bondappeared well after Ian Flemingagain made acquaintance with the soil. Nor are we shocked that Conan Doylehas seemingly taken up pen againand brought Holmes back to life,although many find those efforts regrettable. And yet when I take pen to paperand cast line upon line of…

    Lou Faber

  • ISRAEL’S JUSTIFICATION FOR THE BOMB

    Once it was fur hatsmen on horsebackswords and torchesour villages casting a faint glowfalling into dying embers,here, one whose skullbears the mark of the hoof,there an old onewho would go no farther. Once it was a helmettanks for horsesflames contained in crematoriacities taken for the deservingwe, merely ashesshoveled into a pit,here a tooth, its goldtorn…

    Lou Faber

  • PARENT AGE

    I have two mothers, now both dead,I have three fathers, one unknown, one buriedoutside Washington and one lostin a corner of his shrinking mind.I am growing older, I have achesand clicks and pops and groans,which each remind me that Iam aware and alive and thatisn’t a bad way to start a new day.

    Lou Faber

  • CALENDAR

    As a child I lived next door to a calendar,but not the kind mother always hungon the wall next to the refrigerator, two,one for school events and the obligationsattendant on parenthood and the otherfor holidays, and adult social events,the important one she’d say whenshe thought we couldn’t hear.My calendar was Mrs. Kanutsu,the woman next door,…

    Lou Faber

  • SŌZAN’S NO CHANGE 正法眼蔵 三十

    In entering, do you arriveor are you leaving.In departing do you leaveor are you arriving.Can the gate answeror does it chooseto remain silent.The mountain shoutsthe answer but onlythe river can hear it. A reflection on case 30 of the Dogen’s Shobogenzo (The True Dharma Eye)

    Lou Faber

  • IMPENDING DEPARTURE

    They finally used the wordor one near enough to itand she was not surprised,she almost welcomed it.You can grow jealous of thosewith a depth of faiththat a sentence of monthsor perhaps less is receivedwith grace and a smile, a nodand a statement “I’m morethan ready to go home now,back to my husband.”I hope I will…

    Lou Faber