Farewell from Tennyson Down After Tennyson’s ‘Crossing the Bar’ “One day I`ll go sailing,” you`d said. Sixteen, alone, I watched you cross the bar. Of course, there was foam, I hated you for it. I felt the future cliff behind me, fought the tide to keep you with me, even with your withered boards, crippled […]

On Becoming the Waves Somewhere the waves are alive. Like an endless longing they push and pull from the vast body of blue, forward, to the sanderling—white and brown—who when the waves come, scurries away, then back to the receding water to eat from the foamy sand. What does it mean that waves are relentless— […]

Saint Veronica Who is Not Mentioned in the Bible I heard the soldiers were bringing him up the hill past the shop, dragging that tragedy of God-forsaken tree branches some guys had whip-tied together with leather straps. I was in the back room folding linens for a wedding we were catering later when my daughter […]

Furrows and Barrows Long labours of attention dig down, heap up, leaving furrows and barrows, these lasting features of ideal landscapes, and familiar legacies of centuries’ belief: …….monuments to precepts, …….principles that we can touch. From a train heading north, watch treelines where cathedral spires emerge, cities on hills, well-weathered but still standing, just as […]

Why Would I Pray? A cardinal, watching from an oak without judgement for who I am. Waves that gather sunlight, even as they relinquish it, lapping at the shore. Brushstrokes in the night sky, stars calling to us with ancient mysteries. The secret of transformation, an elusive quality held within a monarch-to-be. The celebration of […]

Playing, Agnes Martin, 1993-1994 The gray strip under clouds plays with you becomes darker and wider as it descends comes on faster than you want even though you are tired of watering the garden want a relief from the obligation to nurture want the rush to first snow that will cover your faults and the […]

When It’s Time for Karen Death should not be antiseptic. It should not smell of bleach or antibacterial soap. It should not sound of monitors and alarms …….and with readouts from sterile machines. If I die in the morning, I want the smell of coffee and waffles and of bacon sizzling in a pan. I […]

wishes in the bottom of a well turning, unturning there is a moth where the light should be and no light i’m bleeding, this moon is the cycle let it ruin to rot, never turned …..to embryo wishes are pennies …….we never threw pennies are arms ……….with no hands i couldn’t throw and the well […]

Snowy Egret I become a snowy egret on the beach, staring into the choppy, translucent sea, skinny legs swaying on each breaking wave, sinking deeper into quickening sand, snatching worms or insects as they fly, nature’s rippling tide, I ride. A brief and treacherous journey, I participate in collectively. A free and easy universe enabling […]

QUIS HIC LOCUS, QUAE REGIO, QUAE MUNDI PLAGA? from ‘Marina’, a poem by T.S. Eliot There is an infinite aspect of our being which knows more about us than we do. Writers who converse with themselves are lights flickering in liminality. This passage urges them to progress to wholeness and safety in a world which […]