I knew it was coming. The last several phone conversations that I had with my sister were labored, troubling. With our last conversation she was unable to finish a sentence. I could not help her, as her mind no longer responded to verbal encouragement. An excerpt from Robert A. Heinlein was sent to me…
One of the features of the south west of the State of Michigan are the fruit farms and the vineyards. Conditions are agreeable for this type of farming. We have visited the Bumbleberry farm several times to pick blue berries and I always come away with the conviction that I have received much more…
Yesterday was our last full day here in Michigan. We concluded the day by a walk down the path to the big lake. We could hear the lake, one block away booming, like a distant sound of canon. The sound grew louder the nearer we approached walking through the woods For the third year…
In downtown St. Joseph Michigan we stopped in at Cabana’s ice cream parlor. The ice cream was worth the wait. I had a giant single scoop of dark chocolate with chocolate chips in a waffle cone. Summer deliciousness…! I noted several paintings, rather surreal images of cows displayed on the walls. I thought to…
Reading continues in the essays by Wallace Stevens. I just finished an essay on resemblance, how things resemble one another thus establishing a relationship, and how this is so in poetry. Stevens asserts that the job of poetry is to tell the truth about reality. That is a lofty estimation of poetry, much higher…
Narcissus did not expect, when he looked into the stream, to find in his hair a serpent coiled to strike, nor, when he looked in his own eyes there, to be met with a look of hate, nor, in general, to discover in himself the center of inexplicable ugliness from which he would be…
The baby was somewhat larger than a kitten. But there was nothing “kitten-like” about it’s dark eyes, and the rows sharp teeth lining it’s mouth. I’ve seen raccoons at some distance, sometimes as close as the garbage containers which attracted their attention. A few months ago, with difficulty I dislodged one that had peeled…
A friend said to me, “when you get into politics, you lose half your audience.” He is right of course and that is expected. My aim in writing is to find the words to speak with integrity, to discover my voice, to be my own reader first and foremost. What control do I have…
After rush hour, late yesterday, I returned from our new place in Batavia. We have yet to move in, — my visit was to assess the dimensions of the rooms, to get a sense of what is possible. The space of habitation determines, almost absolutely, the form and texture of the life that is…
This morning as always I switched on the car radio. It was tuned to NPR. The host was in the midst of an interview with someone opining on the antics of the President. I reached for the dashboard and turned it off. I felt my psyche bend under the additional weight of hearing more…
