I am a donkey when it comes to... heeding colorful chalk messages that have magically appeared  on the sidewalks around my home. Oh I know the messages are good-willed falderol, a form of optimism. So why do I balk? Oscar Wilde once said. “The basis of optimism is sheer terror.” What terror do I speak of? Fact ... read more

I cannot live to write, though it may appear that way at times. The ordinary. The common times. Drudgery and duty. Things I do when no one is watching, those are the seeds of my prose or poetry. Every conversation, every birdsong, oh, remember that glimmer of joy on the mud puddle, the snarl of emotion flung at you, all the goodness and badness in ... read more

Everyone is giving things up and I'm stuck on 40 days. Another 40 days-- Noah bobbing in a flood; Moses too too long on a clouded mountain; Goliath getting his great big self up each day  and taunting Israel; Jesus saying no to tantalizing offers.    Yep, and 40 days of Lent.  The symbol of testing. For most ... read more

Let it be dark. Sun dips. Dusk settles. Black opens her mouth.  Before bed, I unlock the door and tiptoe out onto a frosty deck. It’s December. No moon tonight.  Listen to the deep-grey of far-off highway noise. Past the rumor of clouds, I search for a glint, insistently search as if I must find something to challenge the night. ... read more

Let’s say I thanked you for something. Anything. Giving thanks, transforms a gift.  The gift is enriched. The warm breath of gratitude instills life, sentience.  There I am, my gift looking back at me. I can tell you are thinking of a treasured gift and being thankful all over again.  My momma did not dish out ... read more

Have you ever gotten something, had a stunning moment of great longing finally arrive? And while it unloads its baggage in your margins, you have a caving moment of clarity. Monumental and heavy expectations are making themselves at home. It’s the disconnect between ego that can do anything and reality where you no longer can hide the ... read more

 In 1957, David G. Simons rode a helium balloon up 19 miles... ...tucked inside an aluminum capsule.  Just to see if it could be done. And peek out from on high. He recalled the experience this way: “I had a ringside view of the heavens, where the atmosphere merged with the colorless blackness of space … the sky was so ... read more

Wooden Woman here. Hello again, yes, it's been a while. Sometimes one has to take time to live before there is anything to say.  So there was last weekend--Wooden Woman and her beloved went downtown because there was a happening. A spectacle of three on three basketball. World's largest they say. Masses of sweaty humanity milling the entire ... read more

Wooden Woman takes in a long breath. This is where she takes off her shoes. Between the toes of Engineers boots and hers it’s dusty. Long hairs have migrated under the shoe tree and merged with grey-coated carpet. Wooden Woman remembers house dust is mostly skin, cells shed like snow. Within seven years every cell is ... read more

A story for you.  Wooden Woman will tell it. Was she three? Certainly no more than four years old,  the gangly little Kenyan girl balanced a baby on her back,  the younger leaned in tight. Dusty legs and faces,  each had an empty blue water bottle in hand.  They negotiated the dry and rutted ... read more

Move your mouth as if to voice a long A. Imagine  A  outline. One in 500 sees a color as they do this, an image projected almost outside the body. Not limited to letters and numbers, Rimsky-Korsakov saw the key of C  as white; Scriabin, heard it red. It’s called Synesthesia. Feel sound. Hear color. Taste ... read more