Every Good Morning

I recognize the absurdity of this — spending thousands to repair a porch, hauling 2 tons of river stones, wheelbarrow load by wheelbarrow load, to give the landscaping on each side a uniform appearance. We’re getting it ready for the next owner. We’re keeping up appearances, and sharpening our home’s curb appeal and investing to up its resale value. I need to purge the monetized terms I’ve brought into my […]

How is one to apprehend an image of violence? Let me be specific: a scene of violence in a movie. Not a painting or a photograph or a scene in a novel, history or memoir. Those images somehow seem measured. We read the painting or a photo or we read the words. We may pause. We contemplate. There can be a shock but somehow a shock made more distant by the […]

To “suppress” means to forcibly end, to restrain, to stifle, hold back, deaden. Suppress is a transitive verb. The action transits to the direct object of suppression. To suppress the vote requires someone to suppress. It requires a reason to suppress. Lots of white people believe they are going to be replaced by “colored” peoples, black or brown mostly. These white people vote almost exclusively Republican. Therefore, to keep their place, or so […]

We can make stories from anything. From last night’s expected unsettled sleep filled with a dream of volcanoes withdrawing their fire, the cones going dark like eyes closing over a fever. Then add something as aimless and common as a fox’s scream from the edge of a wood at first light. Yet morning is here again, there are good bagels to eat with Maine Blueberry jam, the big windows let […]