Long-limbed and languid, my daughters perch on the monkey bars at twilight, feet dangling, the sinking sun catching in their wild hair. Remember when they were so small that sitting there felt daring? That your heart caught in your throat to see...
Our garden is producing: zucchini, cucumbers, snap peas, cherry tomatoes. The green beans are getting bigger. Mint and basil are abundant, plenty to flavor dinner and drinks. There has been a sudden interest in baking among the youngest three. Ben...
Invocation –for Kyra The open window admits the last light of a long summer day. No breath of breeze stirs the curtain’s gauze. All is still but sounds creep in, cars and children cicadas and leafblowers like roaring lions. Gold limns the...
Garrowby Hill Down from the hills the purple road flows twisting and leaping like a girl who has a new twirl dress down into the patchwork valley between fields fearfully tiger-striped with new-plowed furrows and the rows of sentinel trees standing...
Afternoon Respite July afternoons blaze gold and bright like the glow of her favorite gown. Not a breeze to break the baking heat in her dusty garden She retreats to the cool green bank of the sofa to dip her tired brain into the brisk stream of a...
it’s been a long time since I wrote a bloggity blog post, stream of consciousness, what’s going on right now, chatty sort of post. Life hasn’t lent itself to that lately, I guess? Today, though, I’m feeling chatty. It’s Ben’s eleventh birthday and...
Three old favorites that I’ve recently read with Lucy. 1. Dahlia by Barbara McClintock This story about a girl who gets a new doll remains one of my all-time favorite picture books. I wrote about it in 2009, and still stand by every word of...
What I’ve been reading. Well, my book notes posts pretty much dried up this year. Like so many things. I’m gonna blame the pandemic, because: why not? Anyway, a quick overview of what I’ve been reading and enjoying, as far as I can remember, in the...
Last month– is it already last month?– I had the privilege of listening to a poetry reading by my friend Sally Thomas, whose new collection, Motherland has just been launched. While this crazy pandemic time of social isolation is a hard...
“. . . ever since that day in Falmouth, I could only find that God gave us the natural liberty to err or do well but did not play with us like dolls and carved toys. Why some faithful prayers are answered and others not was a mystery. Nor could I...
