an old writer and his words

  • GENESIS

    Every time I see a doveI look twice to seeif by chance it has an olive branch,actually any branch, claspedin its claws, for that would meanthe storm of the last years,the wars, the abject poverty,the amassing of wealthfor its own sake at the neverending expense of others,was coming to an end,that the peace we all…

    Lou Faber

  • IN DREAMS

    In my youth so many of my dreamsseemed full length novels, on occasionsome were serialized over several nights.That did not last of course andas I aged medicine stepped into keep my pressure in checkand the magical diuretics decidedI could get by with dream novellas,which were certainly preferableto the other option, fabula interrumpirBut I continued to…

    Lou Faber

  • LIVE ON GOLIATH

    It wasn’t easy being a fat kid,chubby my parents liked to call it,but we both know I was fat.And both Jewish and shortfor good measure, and I wasn’tphysically adept at any sport,so, yes, I was an easy targetand several kids couldn’tpass that opportunity by.But I imagined I was Davidand all of the Goliaths fellat my…

    Lou Faber

  • SO, JEAN-JACQUES

    I suppose, with some effort,I, too, could become oneof Rousseau’s savage menbut I have to ask myself if thatis a path that I would choose to walk.It isn’t the walking that give me pause,for that, as Rousseau said,enables contemplation and notmere thoughts flitting about,and is a means of meditationin my frantically moving world.And it isn’t…

    Lou Faber

  • TIME IS DUE

    Why must everything happen in due time? That is what he wanted to know. He understood things having a due date. That was a certainty if you accepted the calendar. But what was a due time? Time was a construct, a measuring system, seconds, minutes, hours, all neatly divided so you could identify any single…

    Lou Faber

  • STILL VAINLY SEARCHING

    I spent a pleasant morning walkingquietly around the grounds, searchingfor them diligently, but as on most days they again remained hidden from sight.I did see several cattle egrets staringdeeply into the foliage, knowing that breakfast lay hidden deep within,and a flock of ibis pecking lifefrom the still wet, just watered lawns. Today I even saw…

    Lou Faber

  • A BRAVE NEW WORLD

    It is now easy to imagine a worldwhere dystopia lies in waitingaround every corner, always outof sight, always ready to pounce.Now imagine a world, this worldif in 1492 it was a woman whodiscovered this land, and womenwho made all of the decisions.Men could still go to war, but onlyif women decided the war was warranted.It…

    Lou Faber

  • PAUSE

    This morning a lone snowy egretperched stoically atop the leafless treerising out of the small preserve.Of what was it a harbinger, whatmessage was I needing, failing to hear?Was it in search of a dove amid endlessnews of wars still raging on,or was it repeating the unheard warningof what we had wrought in its onceedenic world,…

    Lou Faber

  • RAKUHO’S LAST MOMENTS

    If you sit before the teacherand he asks you “how isyour practice, good or not”how do you answer?If you say your practiceis good, your teacherwill call you a liar.If you say your practiceis not good, your teacherwill tell you to practice. A reflection on Case 41 of the Book of Equanimity (従容錄, Shōyōroku)

    Lou Faber

  • ON WRITING

    Someone once advised methat I should always writewhat I know, for that givesthe work an honesty that isessential to its believability. I should add that he said itknowing I was a poet,and not to cause me to give upany dreams of fictionI might still have harbored. But as I age, I find thatI seem to…

    Lou Faber