After the doctors,the tests, the lab reports,the telephones, the waiting,comes the giftfrom the Giver who is constant,the gift of quiet places.A dusty lane in summer,hemmed with chicoryand Queen Anne’s lace.A brook, sun-shivered,chattering of  stones,kingfishers, fern and dragonflies.A forest of white birch,so deep and silentthe inner trees ar...

Brother Edward, leather apron fire-ticked,leans near the anvilfinishing a plow blade.Red wings drift across the coals.Sister Judith, weeding  the herb garden,crushes thyme between her fingers,kneels to smell the fresh rosemary.A garden snake sends shivers through the chives.His hands know hammer and cold ironas hers know butter and brown dough...

 The beautiful woman has come,Possessed of charm, beloved one. She times her entranceprecisely with the priest’s,entering from the right,he from the left. Small, thin and proud at 65,today she wears a long green velvetcloak, an evening dress of gold lamếmedallion on her forehead. Last Tuesday it was harem pantsa black top with s...

 the tiny yellowVolkswagencircles the circus ringbeeping its hornstoppingthe doors fly open clown after clownemergesyellow polka dotspurple pantseight red noses16 floppy feet jostlingpunchingnudginglaughingwaving to childrenthey drift away my little brown Toyotacircled once, twiceand stoppedin center ring here,let me get th...

 She’s come for lunch, arriving earlyin the old red Chevy,the too-thin figurein the soft blue jumper.the knitted cap. Daffodils in milk glassyellow tablecloth,squash soup,a bit of butter floating,salmon salad on romaine. She’s started watercolors,miniature beach sceneswith tiny gulls and feathersof beach grass. She saysthe rosary to ...

 It’s been five yearsof driveway icecrabgrasstansydandelionspaintersplumbersCPA’schildren wanderingin and out of marriageand employmentchipmunks in the wallswasps in the atticswifts in the chimney How about a trade ?You get down hereand fix your kidsI’ll come up theresit on a cloudand watch.

 Last week, little anglophilac meattended pride and prejudice(note lower case)in a small summer theater,filled with ex-pats from the City,escapees from summer heat,and ladies with hats.The set was futuristic-a library with pastel stacks-and five equitys in costumewho appeared and disappearedwhile performing bits of Austin. At one dramatic...

This street is oddly calm,     every other house                                                    a woman’s house.Belle’s forsythia is rampant.Anna, in the dormered Capeleft her plastic Santa out.It’s Ap...

The day Japan surrendered. Birds had cleaned the blackberries, leaving a wiry tangle at the bottom of the cliff. In the hedges, clouded sulphurs floated near blue chicory and goldenrod. Sunburned from the cornfields, fired with the news on the old Philco, we crammed Leeanne’s  jalopy and bounced down cou...

There’s the yard we talked abouta lighthouse, a canon, a rusty pump, a burro, a Mexican asleep beneath his hat.Dutch children holding tulips,a wheelbarrow of sweetpeas,two garden gnomes with crinkled hats,three geese dressed for Halloween,a wooden lady with red bloomers,six pink flamingos by the door,a giant butterfly stuck on the shed. J...

does anyone remember slow dinners music talk love ? does anyone remember when we had time in buckets? time to sit on porches watch a moonrise wish on stars? 

“Pink clover,” muttered Darwin to his students,The Beagle and the Origin behind him,“Pink clover fields rely uponan abundance of old women. For only the bumblebeewith its long probosciscan fertilize the clover,and brown mice despoilthe nests of bumblebees,but the cats old women keep,green-eyed familiars,dine upon the mice.Hence: Old women mean...

 We buried grandma from the nursing home,where, after years of cooking and complianceshe was the life of the party 2 short years,shouting words we didn’t think she knew.The most outrageous in that foreign place. On the road to the old graveyardbright prayer flags of washingsnapped in the wind. Women in gardensgathered summer in baskets, a...

A clear blue sky, but still a chill, the last snow patch sublimed,a day for burning dry tomato vines,gray-brittle sage, brown hollyhocksan empty robin’s nest from the bare lilacs. Children in red sweatersdisdaining rakes,run crazy eights around the lawn,find twigs to feed the fire,amuse the old black Lab. Smoke stings our eyes,shifts upward by a tr...