an old writer and his words

  • IN SILENCE

    Sitting in stillness, the silenceis at first shocking, deafeningin a way unimagined but there.Within the lack of sound liesa thousand sounds younever heard in the din of life.You hear the young monk at Senso-jiapproach the great bell and pullback on the log shu-moku, straining.You hear the laugh of school agedchildren hand in hand walking throughthe…

    Lou Faber

  • WORKSHOP

    Grace settles into the chair,less an act of sitting thanof floating down onto the seat.She has borrowed my grandmother’ssmile, kind, gentle, inviting.She pulls a book from her bag,its pages or most of themdog eared, and I glimpsesome annotations in the margins.We sit around her like childrenawaiting presents on a holiday,as acolytes seeking knowledgefrom a font…

    Lou Faber

  • SENSO-JI

    By hour six, the plane was just a lumbering beast dividing the sky, halfway from God knows where to nowhere special. His body cried for sleep but he knew he had to deny it. That much he had learned from prior trips. For when he landed, made his way painfully slowly into the city, it…

    Lou Faber

  • ANCESTRY

    Children have an innate senseof their ancestry.I was a child of the cityit’s streets my paths, alwaysunder the watchful eyeof my warden – mother. Dirt was to be avoidedat all possible cost,so I never dug my handsinto the fertile soil of myvillage in the heart of Lithuania,or tasted the readying harvestthat dirt would remember. I…

    Lou Faber

  • CLOSE ENOUGH TO HEAR

    We sit around the small tablesglad to be out of the sunwhose midday glare seemsto blind the drivers slowlyapproaching the Jetty Park lot. A family chatters, the childrenlaughing at nothing, at everything,and nearby a dog lays outdreaming of a good walkand dinner, hoping for scraps. We can hear the waterof the inlet, the waves breakingonto…

    Lou Faber

  • IMMIGRATION

    When you got off the boatyou must have been scared,but getting away from that lifemade the fear bearable. I have no idea how you endedup in West Virginia, it wasn’tat all like Lithuania, and Jewsmight have had two heads I imagine. But you all made do, madea community, invited othersand were tolerated if odd,and I…

    Lou Faber

  • ON THE MESA

    On the mesa you can step outsideand look up at the sky,clouds building mountainsthat threaten to eat the sun,swallow the moon whole. On the mesa you can step outsideand feel incredibly small,listen to the coyotes withthe ears of scared children,unable to run like the jackrabbit. On the mesa you can step outsideand look up at…

    Lou Faber

  • HOME?

    The news, online and on paper,is replete with storiesabout adult children movingback in with their parents,whether because of the pandemic,or other circumstances, alwaysexpecting they willhave a room at the ready. Perhaps it is why wechose to have no spare rooms,sort of a preemptive strikeagainst an ill-conceived return. But as my cohort ages,I wonder if all…

    Lou Faber

  • BECAUSE, JUST BECAUSE

    The cat is stalking around the house, wary. She gets this way after coming back from the vet. She actually likes the vet, and not only for the treats she gets, and the pawdicure. But she must stalk and be wary so we will be remorseful for having taken her to the vet. And she…

    Lou Faber

  • PERSPECTIVE

    It will soon enough be time again,I am an old clockface on a towerat which no one but the truly boredbother to look, tucked in a cornerof a village half empty, its lifemoved away to places cooler,less stormy. So I sit and watchwhat life remains around me,the few children wishing theycould be elsewhere, some parentswishing…

    Lou Faber