We stood in a circle in the sunshine on the patio where we had waved palm fronds barely an hour before; now we were sharing bread and wine, basking in the brilliant spring shine, our solemn ritual exposed, on purpose, made public, taken outdoors, alive; our ministers in stoles and
Time like an ever-rolling stream bears all its sons away; They fly forgotten as a dream dies at the opening day. (Isaac Watts) Let's go Red Sox! Peace, Milton P. S. -- and of course, Opening Day has been postponed due to inclement weather; after all, it is
I have great news: my friend, Nathan Brown, won the 2009 Oklahoma Book Award for Poetry with his latest book, Two Tables Over . I know. The sentence begs a couple of questions: * They have poets in Oklahoma? * They give them awards? The answer to both questions is yes. Poetry does
I dug a grave today. It was a first for me. The call came early this morning from church friends Tracy and Robin saying their beloved beagle, Violet, was going to be put to sleep. Ginger was up and out of the house in minutes. About a half hour later
Ginger and I have spent the day around the house getting it ready for our new housemate and dear friend, Cherry, who has packed up the plans in her car and is leaving Boston to come and live with us here in the Bull City. In the process of our
Somewhere in the middle of the afternoon today, I found what I thought would be the opening lines to a poem for my post: The line came to me because of how tired I felt and I wished for the wherewithal to say something beyond the obvious when someone asked
On nights like tonight when I come home tired and try to write, only to have my little dog begin bouncing her ball on my feet, begging me to choose her over words, I think about monks and those who cloister themselves to meditate, yes, and to write, to get
By the time most of you read this (actually, by the time I finish writing), it will be April, whose first week holds a sort of harmonic convergence for me. The First of April marks the beginning of National Poetry Month (National GeekFest, as Ginger lovingly calls it); this weekend
I would like to say at the end of the day that I still had some play but that would be (somewhat) lying I would like to reveal all the things that I feel you know – keeping it real but that would be (mostly) sighing So I’m going to
My friend Gordon has been telling the story of his church in San Antonio at his blog at at the High Calling website. Part of the story is about the pastor who preceded him -- a friend of many of us – who was amazingly gifted at offering grace to others that
can it be on these nights when we are tucked in our home curled up on the couch with doughnuts of dogs at our feet, the kitchen still holding the aroma of the garlic I roasted this afternoon the way we are holding life close, with only a couple of
I finished Kathleen Flinn’s The Sharper the Knife, The Less You Cry today and found myself moved by her closing words: With a little searching, I found a copy of “The Station,” for which I’m grateful. He follows the words Flinn quoted with these: With those sentiments swirling