Poetry, biography, and children's book author
Words carved on an antique box: J.A. Egen, Prisoner of War, Burt's Island, Bermuda, November 11, 1901 What proof do we need of existence? Sometimes only a carved letter box inlaid with lilies, the corners coupled in half-blind dovetails. A box chiseled by a prisoner of war, a South African Dutchman who fought the British… Continue reading Inside an Old Wooden Box
we found a string of jewels never meant to be revealed on a Monday morning— not here, not on the lawn beneath a king palm tree on a city street— a luminous necklace of intestines dangling from the spine of an animal locked in fetal position, fur trailing like orange hair yanked out of a… Continue reading At the Intersection with Wildness
you mourn over the death of your hair in all five predictable stages of grief you went missing the moment your hair fell out in the emergency room bathroom you stare in the mirror day after day to make sure you continue to live often you panic over your naked head, a half-bodied hermit crab… Continue reading Because of Cancer
Sixty years— I still hear those black and white beats and feel the throb of an army snare drum— three measures rolled with an even pulse, the fourth one choked and abruptly stopped. They spoke of a sixties news telecast, the late autumn hours, a nation that wept, the caisson that lumbered with iron regret, a president’s… Continue reading When the Drum Told the Story
Before it was fire, a car accident, a plane crash en route to Australia made sense to invest with adrenaline, pounding heartbeat, with personal sweat and misguided belief. My worries fed upon distant statistics, remote possibility, apocalyptic, until they approached me where the street ends and were reintroduced as my long-lost friends… Continue reading Pandemic VII: Before and After
Some arrive with soft wing flaps alighting on her ivory cheek, some are shadows by her mouth that creep to where she bites her lip. Others hide behind her squeezed eyelids and wait for blinking, to escape. Then the moment when her thoughts ignite like Chinese fireworks— imagination trailing sparks, fired… Continue reading My Granddaughter’s Thoughts When She Concentrates
of a dog's heart beat a brown bird's song a bench in the sun like a sigh to float on a felt wing flap when a dove grays along a collection of mornings untouched by doom the quiet shrine of an afternoon the laughter of leaves in a sylvan wind… Continue reading To Dwell in the Small Safety
It’s like a present found under the tree when everyone's sound asleep on Christmas Eve, and the thrill of trespassing. The rustic wrapping is full of hope, a family’s intimate history written in twisted straw and cursive grass and sometimes fine sepia print. There’s the urgency of architecture: this twig here, then this… Continue reading Gift of a Sparrow’s Nest
some of my breath, some of yours his last breath and later hers a prayer on my knees for grace if I should die before I wake your whispered words, a choir’s song the droplets that are passed along dust I touch but cannot feel a rising howl that seems surreal … Continue reading Things That Fill the Air
Once we made gold that sweetened the drink of Egyptian kings, elixir of gods. Once our god was an ebony gold that drove our machines and drove countries to war. Once we beat our wings at the sun, our castle a colossus that hummed. Once we made wings and flew past the sky to a… Continue reading Pandemic V: Once an Empire