an old writer and his words

  • ON LOSSES

    By the way, the headstone is lovely,designed by your niece, it pays tributeto you as aunt, as sister, as friend. I do wish it had said mother as wellbut I know I’m the one secret you thoughtwould fit into a corner of the pine box,buried with you, to be, like you, reclaimedby the rocky soil…

    Lou Faber

  • A SIMPLE CHOICE

    It is a simple choice, she said,bicycles or a cat. I wanted to tell her thatthere are no simple choicesin the middle of a pandemic,and those that seem that way,to mask or not, to shop or notcan be life or death choices. I thought about the optionsfor a few moments, rememberedthe cats I still mourn…

    Lou Faber

  • MAY DAY

    We marched for hours, goingnowhere really, but nowhere wasthe point of the marching so weachieved the goal the Air Force set.We didn’t even think it oddthat they made us shave our heads,so we’d all look like fools,there was a war on and wewere in the military, so wehad already proven that point.We were the smarter…

    Lou Faber

  • STEPPING

    I know I should find a riverand just sit on its banksand stare at the water flowing I don’t have to step in it onceto know I couldn’t step in twiceif I wanted, so that problem’s solved. And with dry feet, I can walkalong its banks with a bit morejaunt in my step, which should…

    Lou Faber

  • EVEN HERE

    As winter closes in around us,even here, the Great Blue Heronsgo about building a nest,inviting us to watch as theymake a home of gatheredbranches and twigs, obliviousto the state of our world,of the pandemic gripping us. We watch respectfully, knowingthat in this darkest of seasons,we are about to witnessour own little miracle and willsoon bear…

    Lou Faber

  • NEATNESS COUNTS

    Ice, he said, is clearly an inventionof Satan, the ice cube a scaled downversion of that corner of hell of whichno one ever speaks, so little known. And stop and think, we got by wellfor eons without a cube of ice, unlesswith blade we chipped it froma nearby glacier or left water outin the dead…

    Lou Faber

  • Q.E.?

    Religion, he said, is inherently illogicaland the older the religion, the more illogicalit becomes, accreting absurdity over time.A corollary of this proposition is thatthe more organized a religion claims to be,the more its spirituality is buried underrules and regulations which only illustratethe principal proposition set forth above.Humans create religion not to explainthe unexplainable but to…

    Lou Faber

  • THE MISSING KEY

    You said you’d leave a keyunder the mat on the front stoop,or was it taped atop the light fixturejust to the right of the door jamb top? Well I checked both placesand there was no key to be found,so perhaps it slipped out, got kickedand someone absentmindedly took it and saved it meaning one dayto…

    Lou Faber

  • INSIDE, UNSEEING

    I’ve been trying to discover howit is that those inside the beltwayelected to office, or workingfor those who were elected,have all sense of irony (andin some cases. civility) erased. How else to explain that for manythere can be no climate changewhile the nation they serveis bearing its cost, climatologicallyand in discourse and diversity,and still they…

    Lou Faber

  • TOZAN’S GOING BEYOND BUDDHA

    The greatest speechis given onlywhen the mouthfalls shut.To talk of peaceis to beat war with peace,to speak of waris to be at war.When listening disappearspeace reemerges,when peace emergesthe listener appears. A reflection on Case 12 of Dogen’s Shobogenzo (The True Dharma Eye)

    Lou Faber