an old writer and his words

  • IS THERE AN ECHO IN HERE?

    He said to her, “you know it really irritates me how you always seem to repeat yourself. Say it once and that’s enough.” She paused, thought about his comment, then said, “You know, despite what you say, I don’t, I don’t really, but nuance is something that always seems just beyond your comprehension.” He bristled,…

    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

  • INTO THE DESERT

    His is six and deeply confused, and asks questions to end that state. He wants to know if Adam and Eve had two sons, and one killed the other, where did all of the people come from? Ask your father seems and easy answer, but one he cannot accept, too easy for a mind that…

    Lou Faber

  • RIVERSIDE

    The great bronze kings of the Chosun Dynasty look down from Mount Namsan over the city, valleys of small homes, neatly tiled roofs over ramshackle walls, with small gardens clustered atop amid clothes drying racks and cars careening along narrow streets. The old woman wraps the pink towel around on her scalp like some garish…

    Lou Faber

  • DISTANT SONG

    I thought I heard a woman singing somewhere in the distance, an ethereal song whose melody floated over me, dropping momentarily into my consciousness then as quickly flitting away. I walked off the carefully tended path stepped into the clutching brush, the smell of Juniper filled the air. Pushing through a thicket I thought I…

    Lou Faber

  • ROOMS

    I am reasonably certain, he said, that they are weaving a rug in the next room, a large one, I imagine, or at least a wall tapestry. It should be a medieval scene, dogs, a knight or gentleman, a child or two, and in the center a beautiful woman. Actually, if they are weaving it…

    Lou Faber

  • PLEASE CONTINUE TO HOLD

      The thing I don’t get, he said, is why whenever I put in a call to heaven a male voice answers, and says he will transfer me. Usually the wait time is too long but occasionally a woman will answer and tell me the Queen of Queens, blessed is she, is busy but she…

    Lou Faber

  • THE AUTUMN OF SPRING

    Spring has arrived, however begrudgingly, and the young woman pushes the older woman’s wheelchair along the paths of the great park. Neither speaks, but each knows this could be the last time they do this. That shared knowledge paints each flower in a more vibrant hue, each fallen petal is quickly but individually mourned for,…

    Lou Faber

  • ANOTHER GHETTO

    She sits in the bookstore cafe her head covered by a linen kerchief bobby pinned to the mass of walnut curls. She cradles the cup of cooling coffee and stares down at the slim book of Amichai, yielding to the Hebrew letters that seem to dance across the page. I sit at the adjoining table…

    Lou Faber

  • SHE SAID

    She said that we are little more than clay to be molded by God and carved by fate and we count on nothing more than this day. It’s but a week since she has slipped away, we expect our sense of loss to abate. She said that we were little more than clay, just so…

    Lou Faber