When I Grow Too Old to Dream

When I Grow Too Old to Dream We have been gay, going our wayLife has been beautiful, we have been youngAfter you’ve gone, life will go onLike an old song we have sung When I…

Hibernation

That’s where the words have gone. Some special “extended state of torpor.”  Some deep drop in the metabolism of language and memory. Shocked into an energy-saving indolence. A lethargy designed to evade these dark days….

Want Ads

We used to call them that—the classifieds that filled the final pages of our local newspapers. And we really meant everything advertised for sale in small boxes, divided into categories that included jobs available, pets…

Lament

I come to this winter season—this icy interlude of cold and snow and thin light–lonely. I am struck by the yawning emptinesses once filled by friends and family and colleagues who are now gone. This…

Drawing the Line

I was in college, but likely on holiday. Mother and Daddy and I were driving home from somewhere—the Dreshers maybe. I considered myself grown up and wise  but was still in the backseat of the…

The “What Was I Thinking” Shoes

Notwithstanding the modest income that kept our family afloat, Mother insisted that we wear good school shoes. They had to fit well; perhaps allow for a bit of growth through the school year; offer arch…

The Kitchen

I dream it into three dimensions so many nights— my growing up home. 830 North Ash in McPherson. The very last time I stepped inside for real—the rooms echoingly empty, I recorded the metallic rasp…

Safely Gathered In

Two posts ago, I jumped the gun with my essay on fighting to accept winter. Since then, the universe has served up an uncommonly lovely fall. We have had flickers of frost some mornings. We…

Voir Dire

I spent the lion’s share of my 76th birthday in Helena’s Justice Court. No, I was not the scofflaw. I was on jury duty—for which I managed to be selected out of something like 30…