Running and Jumping
The simple pleasures of youth become the big dreams of middle age. What do I dream? What I have always dreamed. If my body fails, the impulse remains. Is that desire enough, even when our bodies crumble?
Read MoreRobbers—Bees and Otherwise
Last month, one of my beekeeping staff accidentally dropped a queen in her cage onto the soft earth next to the hives in my yard. The beekeeper had also stepped on the cage, made of wood and about the size of a large tube of lipstick, with screen on one side. In the morning I discovered the crushed cage, the queen half in and half out, clinging to the screen, still alive, but barely…
Read MoreDante's Internal Combustion Engine
This is the title track from an unfinished manuscript circa 2005. Posted now à propos of my recent time in medical clinics and—incredibly—the wars that will not end. I stand behind my conclusion (see the last line), despite it all.
For Virgil, wherever you are...
Read MoreApril 29, 1942 - January 22, 2014
Mom died three years ago today. The feeling of loss and love never goes away, it seems. On the contrary, the loss almost heightens the memories. During Mom's last months in Ohio countryside, I saw my siblings and our uncle Rick. We drove through the Amish farmlands, argued politics, and made grim jokes while watching Breaking Bad…
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