an old writer and his words

  • 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

  • MIRRORS

    Each morning I drag myselffrom bed, slowly engage my legs,and amble into the bathroomwhere I peer into the mirror.Each morning I am surprisedthat I am the same as I wasthey day before, and yet the mirrorby all appearances,has grown another day older.It is, I suppose, the natureof mirrors to age, sadly for them,and as I…

    Lou Faber

  • KEGON RETURNS TO DELUSIONS 鐵笛倒吹 語十二

    If a gentle flower falls from its branch do you mourn its departure. The fool attempts to place it back in the tree, the wise one waits for another flower to appear. Each is the same flower but how will the fool become wise. A reflection on case 52 of the Iron Flute Koans.

    Lou Faber

  • IN MOURNING

    These days we collectively mourn those we have sacrificed on the holy altar of our ignorance. There was a time when we limited war to one per generation, but we now wage them in clusters, it being easier to deal with the interminable periods of boredom where we have nothing to do but imagine peace.

    Lou Faber

  • MORNING

    Each morning she looks at the small window in her bedroom, just after the sun has broken the horizon and the lake is set ablaze. Each morning she sees the small boat, its oars resting on the gunwale, dark against the orange water. She never asks how the boat got there, why it stays there,…

    Lou Faber

  • DREAM WALKING

    Tonight I will again walk through my dream scrapbook re-creating you. For a bit longer, at least, I have full creative expression knowing now that you died six years ago, never married. I will search from the carefully or inadvertently dropped clue, your obituary, bits and facts that could never have come from the adoption…

    Lou Faber

  • THIS IS HOW WE MOURN

    This is how we mourn: we don’t berate the clouds for gathering, nor begrudge the rain’s ultimate descent. Our tears fall to the earth as well, and there are moments when we need the gray, moments when the sun would be an unwelcomed interloper. This is how we mourn: we wipe the walls clean of…

    Lou Faber