Assumptions and Cullings
SamplerI sometimes come on headstones in backwoods graveyards
girt by their own shallow graves the size of bathtubs
and by brush, through which each one juts valiantly upward.
Lately, whenever I take to my local river,
small cavities in either…
Partners & Pardners
SamplerIn the pre-op room, my wife was given
a scalene block for a brief procedure.
She had shoulder surgery three months back,
and now again they’ll anesthetize her
to break up scars that have kept her in pain.
She’ll be comatose, however…
2019
SamplerSome are apt to swoon over nature,
loving what they call harmony.
But Tennyson got it right on whoever
Trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation's final law,
saying Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shriek'd against his creed.
The…
My Tribe & I
SamplerIn a characteristically compelling essay called “Grub: A Man in the Market,”1 Garret Keizer briefly muses on his distaste for upper New England farmers’ markets. He concedes that those institutions appeal to what his wife Kathy calls “our…
Irruption
SamplerAt dawn today, the fog still slept on the river.
The sun of a seemingly endless, Hadean heat wave
had not yet broken through, so I drove to the launch
for a paddle. Green herons, smart as sentries, patrolled
one bank. A beaver sculled beside…
What Smart People Think
SamplerTo begin with, let me quote a bit from something written for George Jones in the 1990s by Nashville veterans Randy Boudreaux, Sam Hogin, and Kim Williams:
I started drinking and actin' crazy
Way back in sixty five
Mama would pray and say,…