Heard this song on the radio yesterday. The lyrics keep coming back to me. I believe that it is much more than a simple love song. How difficult it is to make a pact with oneself to respect, to honor the integrity of one’s own one life. How difficult it is to accept ourselves,…
With all the disruptions swirling around us, even if one is not directly impacted, — these are troubled times. I am dismayed for my countrymen in Northern California, and in Puerto Rico. Those who live in Houston and in the Florida Keys will suffer the hard labor of recovery for many months, perhaps years…
Too much caffeine yesterday, I slept little last night. Today is another day. Like everyone else, a creature of habit, I begin my day with a cup of coffee. I know better, but here I am at Starbucks. Happened to hear this song playing on the radio: The Wind Cries Mary by Jimi Hendrix. …
Auschwitz (Laggiù, ad Auschwitz, lontano dalla Vistola) There, at Auschwitz, far from the Vistula, love, on the northern plain in a field of death: funereal, cold, rain on the rusted poles, and a tangle of steel fences: and no trees or birds in the grey air, or above our thought, but inertia and…
Another hot late September day. It promises to be 90 degrees. Between our president and the leader of North Korea, another session of bitch-slapping, saber rattling. A formation of B-1 bombers and F-15 fighters made a pass along the coast of North Korea. What is the next move going to be and who will…
I read a review in the New Yorker about a book of poems entitled Night by Etel Adnan. The next day I submitted my order to Amazon. For many years I have carried a copy of T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets in my briefcase where ever i go. Adnan’s work will join the Eliot…
There are seasons of life. In the late 1970’s I was a student learning to swim in the vast ocean of philosophy. With a bit more focus next I studied at Garrett Evangelical Divinity School in Evanston. I assumed the professional end of all of the study was to become a Christian minister. For…
The end of summer, the inception of fall is always a sad time for me. I will miss the radiance of long days, the heat which enables the tomato vines to produce, and the festivals of music. As the days shorten, become cooler, bees become more active gathering supplies for the severe months, and…
The poem haunts me. I receive one poem a day via email from the poetry foundation. Most I read once and discard due to my inability to resonate with the words. This one gets to me. It describes the speakers encounter with a “crazy” street preacher, Brother Rickey, while waiting for the pedestrian crosswalk…
My slave holding people of the mid 1800s who lived in the South deserve more consideration for their brutal attitudes toward blacks, —than do we for our racism toward people of color. The slave trade, referred to by Southeners as “our peculiar institution” was the fading, dying residue of an ancient institution. The Slavery…
