Meditations in a Suburban Landscape I cherish the time I spend with my Sangha. The Buddha would laugh at the little boxes its members fill on my screen, some I have been fortunate enough to share space with, others familiar to me though I have never had the chance to embrace them. This summer hasContinue reading “Mowers and Blowers”
Category Archives: prose
Absence in Two Takes
One The dimensions of your absence are infinite. I smile now at my attempts to measure it from within, when the space we filled left no room to stand back and look. Shrieks and screams, laughter and lovemaking, the long years of raising our sons, now men with children of their own. I have comeContinue reading “Absence in Two Takes”
Legacy
Einstein once wrote to a friend, “People like you and I, though mortal of course like everyone else, do not grow old no matter how long we live. What I mean is we never cease to stand like curious children before the great Mystery into which we were born.” While parts of me, many partsContinue reading “Legacy”
Sunday Morning
My companions as dawn breaks this Sunday morning are the birds serenading me and the rabbit breaking his fast on the clover scattered across my yard. I sit above the fray, listening to Lay, Lady, Lay, Dylan’s most melodious singing of his career. A little blackbird with a luminescent sheen perches on the high railing,Continue reading “Sunday Morning”
Ode to Peace
They told me you were stillness: the lake with no wind, the held breath, the shut door, the white and waiting room where nothing is allowed to move. I believed them and searched for the place where everything stops. But I found you instead under a palm laid flat on my chest, a slow breathContinue reading “Ode to Peace”
Trying
The sky is still this morning, white, grey clouds with an icing of pink are fixed in place as if they had been hung in the sky as part of a grand design. Except for the soft cooing of an owl there is a stillness that belies the storm that tore limbs from trees andContinue reading “Trying”
Shaped by Myths, Masters, and Mystics
We live in a world shaped by stories told, retold and retold again. By the time they reach our ears they bear little familiarity with their origins. Tales that might even be based on some kernel of truth but more than likely were first envisioned in the mind of the victor to keep those vanquishedContinue reading “Shaped by Myths, Masters, and Mystics”
Two Pieces – If Only and Fireflies
If Only If Only, I don’t have regrets but I know a missed opportunity when I see one. If only I had taken off the harness sooner and followed you on your wild escapades to far off places. Trips to Iceland mud masked at the Blue Lagoon, the Netherlands where you stayed with Arlene atContinue reading “Two Pieces – If Only and Fireflies”
Grateful Rememberings
I am struck by the enormity of the love I have received and only know its breadth and depth by the chasm that lies empty now. The sweet tenderness of my grandmother, a dollop of sour cream in a bowl of borsht only served after she would hold my hands in hers under warm soapyContinue reading “Grateful Rememberings”
Celebrating Earth and Your Day
And so, my love, it is your birthday, not that we began your celebrations that day. We often started on the first of April, sometimes before a daffodil was spotted, but not before the shelves of stores carried Easter eggs and stuffed bunnies. I will celebrate you in the woods this day. It rained thisContinue reading “Celebrating Earth and Your Day”