The second life the secret, unhidden world of public anonymity the doorway to the city: my front stoop. Deep blue heaven, and the shared moon, and people’s paths crossing the space around me all tell me, Everything is relative, therefore we are family. Everyone’s on top of the world and everyone’s on the bottom. Your dignity is in your smallness your greatness in your line of sight gazing up and down like a king receiving all you see secretly glad in the being of all men, insects, and clouds secretly… Read more At Midnight →
Recently a friend told a brief story which was meant to illustrate the point that we often interpret others through a screen of our own tendencies. My friend was driving… Read more Is Sweet Poetry Bad Poetry? →
I suppose it’s natural that people who feel themselves powerless and ineffectual most of their lives would at some point begin to think about power. Josh and I have certainly begun to do so. There was a time when I would have scorned to think about power – my instincts are all for independence and in my maturity I have never wished to control anyone. It comes clear to me now that this is precisely why we have to think about power – in order to protect and promote independence.… Read more Evil Thefts and Virtuous Expansions of Power →
Jesus, you are the taker of souls, you are the secret thief of souls. Under cover of night you steal your daughter from pirates who curse and strike the air. Jesus, you are the divine piper and every soul who hears you throws away his living and runs after you leaving his winding-sheet in the road. Jesus, you are the all-loved man. Masked in darkness, you draw out the soul of a dying man from its lifelong home. Though he is terrified he surrenders. Jesus, you are the taker of… Read more Jesus, Taker Of Souls →
I must be brief. I feel I’m starving, and none of this fare my husband likes to call “rabbit food” seems tolerable at the moment. After wrestling with Johnny for hours on end I’ve been overtaken by the urge to replenish my emotional welbeing by eating something warm and savory and very, very lonely. But a word is enough on a subject so mind-splitting. Soon I must go and hunt down my missing husband and when I find him (frolicking with his brothers, no doubt) I am going to leave… Read more A Rather Heckish Day →
Our son, whom I call Johnny on this blog, just turned two. His dad, tired of elderly ladies mistaking Johnny for a little girl because of his glorious blond curls,… Read more “Johnny” Turns Two →
As I look around at the unpacked, unsorted stacks of cds, old diaries, pillows, and toys which I ought to be finding a place for, I want to mention the pleasure of doing one’s duty. There are two possible reasons, in my case, for accomplishing anything. The first is that I seek achievment, the boast of having done something. The second is that I ought to. Now my I believe the second reason is the more noble. I also think that it weeds stress out of my life when I… Read more On Duty, Floor Plans, and Ants →
Ah, Wisconsin! Where the landscapes look like patchwork quilts shaken out by gods of earth and sky; and where June is Dairy Month. After the traffic hell that is Chicago, I crossed the border into my home state and pulled over at the first exit for a rest stop. I stretched; my limbs creaked and eased and my knuckles sank into the good Wisconsin turf lipped by the white flowers and fine green disks of our humble Wisconsin clover. White flowers of clover are good refreshment. If you ever find yourself wandering on a dirt pathway… Read more Of White Clover Blossoms and One-Horned Muskopods →
Slow Literature 