an old writer and his words

  • REINCARNATION

    In my next lifeI want to come backas a Great Blue Heron. I will majesticallystand by a lake, capturingfish, capturing the eyeof all who wander by,pausing in awe and desire. And I will havethe one thing I knowI now lack, that traitthat has escaped mefor far too many years,patience, the abilityto stand and stareuntil the…

    Lou Faber

  • IF ONLY

    If there were truly justiceat least of the poetic sortperhaps Van Gogh couldhave been born 75 yearsearlier, and in Viennanot Holland, so that whenhe decided to be ridof an ear he could haveoffered it to Beethovenneither of his workingin his later years. Andif a poet could arrangetime travel using his licensethen he could just as…

    Lou Faber

  • AFGHAN, ANYONE

    Symbols have deep meaningeven to those so blind theycannot see them, and our politicshave become wholly retail. Any good retailer will tell youthat $19.95 is significantlyless than $20.00, a nickelthat swallows the dollars. So we got out, and nineteenyears and 354 daysis considerably shorterthan twenty years we are told, but everything blew up around us,but…

    Lou Faber

  • HISTORY

    We only see the present as history,by day history is a matter of minutes,by night of seconds, years or centuries. There is no future to be seen, onlyimagined, the mind writing a storythat can never be read, never told. It is only when we close the eyesthat the present truly exists,independent of the past, free…

    Lou Faber

  • JUST ONE MORE HAND

    My parents, well my father,always felt is was necessaryto stop on the way to our summer homein the Western Adirondacksto visit Uncle Morris, who mayor may not have been an unclein the blood sense, it was never clear.It was he who sold my father the cottagenear the small lake, he who nowlived in a nursing…

    Lou Faber

  • HAUNTING MOMENTS

    All too soon, I will returnas a ghost and how youand others deal with thathas yet to be seen, althoughknow that ghosts arereflective, and your thoughtswill determine both my presenceand mood during such visitsas I choose to make to you. You may not believein ghosts, I did not for years,but as you approachthat state of…

    Lou Faber

  • PHOTOGRAPH

    I saw a picture of you today, althoughI can’t be certain when it was taken,and while I can easily say that youlook exactly as I remember you,that is saying nothing really,for moments after I took the picturewe said goodbye to each other,intending to meet again, knowingthe chances of that were minuscule. I have returned your…

    Lou Faber

  • CRISIS

    He wants to have his midlife crisis in peace and quiet. He has penciled it in his calendar for at least five years now. Something always comes up, something that demands he be in public, and he simply will not have a crisis in that setting, no matter what. He’s sure he supposed to have…

    Lou Faber

  • SLIP SLIDING AWAY

    Merriam-Webster declared me an orphan yesterday morning, when my father slipped away from his morphine dreams. Some would argue I cannot be an orphan at my age, that is a sanctuary reserved for children, but I am long past admitting my age, and my behavior gives no lie to my claim of childhood. I will…

    Lou Faber

  • THE BLINK

    In the elemental scheme of things we humans are, at best, middling. We are minute in the scale of the universe, our time not even a glimmer, and as we age, time contracts, but only in the shortening forward direction. But pity the poor hydrogen-7 isotope whose life is likely over in 30 yactoseconds, absorbing…

    Lou Faber