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HARLECH CASTLE
I stood on the rampartsthat cold, wet morninglooking out over the waitingIrish Sea, this day offeringonly rain and a November chill. Write haiku, she said to usand I thought of Bashoand Issu who never stoodon a 13th Century Welshfortress and never imaginedwriting about Llywelyngreat or not nearly so. In the rain and chillI scribbled furiously,retreated…
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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…
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MY ANNA
Along the banks of the barge canalin the village park, a manolder, his hair white, almosta mane, sits on the breakwallfeeding Wonder breadto the small flotilla of ducks.Tearing shreds of crustfrom a slice, he casts itonto the water and smilesas they bob for the crumbs.He tells them the storyof his life as thoughthey were his…
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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…
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CANINE
The dog refuses to walkaround the house and checkthe driveway, and sothe shells will rain on the villageas they do each time she senses fear. She has a sight beyond thatI can fathom, curled underthe heat vent, as thoughthe cries of children carryin her dreams, her taildances against the grate. On most nights when she…
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REAL TIME
He can spend hours on the wooden bench in the small square in the center of the village. There he is but a statue, staring up at the giant clock face that looms over the square from the turret of the Village Hall. He likes to watch the long hand, arrowlike, make its slow, but…
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THE VILLAGE
I’d like you to tell meabout the village in whichyou grew up, and how oddit must have been for youto have met my grandfatherso far from any villagein the heart of Lithuania.I suspect you leftwith your parents, exhaustedby pogroms, exhaustedby the Jewishnessthat to them defined you.I’d love to knowabout my mother whoI never got to…
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GOD HAS COME, OR NOT
It is the wet season when the rains wash the village carrying off the detritus of poverty. On the adobe wall of the ancient town hall some villagers say a face appeared one morning. To some it was the face of Christ to others that of an old man a former mayor, perhaps, to most…
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VILLAGE
The village of my grandfather still stands amid the fields adobe walls stained by soot from the fireplace birds nesting in the summer warmed chimney singing. The ancient scythe leans against the wall, its blade embedded in the crusted soil as the old tractor idles in the field. Armies have trod this ground ignoring the…
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an old writer and his words 