10 minutes. 5 lines.

10 minutes. 5 lines. has become real/shorts

2010-03-31T08:27:00.000-04:00

Just a reminder that this blog has evolved into another blog. I've changed the format just a little and moved it to www.realshorts.blogspot.com. This new site has all of the entries from this site, plus some new ones. Hope to see you there. Thanks for reading.

Shake Off

2009-06-15T02:01:00.002-04:00

The dryer tells me how long I've been out of bed, how much moisture and sleep have been evaporated. I realize right this minute how constantly, like a cow's tail, I shake off the quiet and the still.

Tell Them

2009-06-15T01:56:00.002-04:00

Unfortunately, she spent the last ten years wondering which side had more of what she longed for the most. She changed her course on Friday. Tell them all I've missed them, too, Alice.

Body and mind

2009-05-02T20:18:00.003-04:00

The season's finally turned deep green, and two girls are running through a sprinkler in their front yard. I ride past, easily thirty years older. I pedal in and out of sunshine, storms wander in and out and I see this spring just as I did thirty years ago. The light changes; rain comes. And so does the present day, where I am actually, sometimes in both body and mind.

Awake

2009-02-21T05:41:00.003-05:00

Not sleeping; I get up and let the awake have its way. My brain is ready to go, says something in the universe is not right and I must find it. I listen to the cats letting their feet fall heavy, moving from bed to floor to tub and back again. As I imagine I would if I were them; I would count the tiny steps it would take to touch every surface of this house, then count them backward.

A Mild Minute

2009-02-14T17:36:00.003-05:00

Windows in the front of the house thrown open, yawning; our home inhales through its teeth. It is warm in February again. It feels like a gift; a minute to wipe the stale off of everything, to remember what it feels like to move about without socks and sweaters, to dream of things growing again. A mild minute we won't pay for or regret, because summer is not next, not yet.

A five-line note from the author

2009-02-14T17:26:00.006-05:00

Many apologies for the dormancy of this blog. But rest assured, it's not dead, only sleeping. Keep checking in, if you will, and the February funkies will work themselves out. To everyone who regularly checks this blog out, thank you very much. Your attention is much appreciated. It wouldn't be the same without you. Stay tuned, and stay awesome.

Meditation

2009-02-05T06:15:00.003-05:00

Breathing deep, like I am often told to do, I bring anxiety even to that task. Any purposeful, self-conscious act feels like the opening of a jar of ants. Tiny swarms of movement, it can feel like motion is more calming than stillness; but this is the onion peeled only halfway. My nerves fight hard to survive at any cost, building the lie that nothing, not even breath, is underneath.

Heat

2009-02-05T06:05:00.002-05:00

From the second floor, I hear the furnace turning on; a solid, building churn. A moment after, the radiators gurgle with water sounds. I cannot understand the mechanics, except to imagine this fire roaring in the cellar, bringing the blood in the house's veins to a boil. Somewhere a thermometer trips it all on, and the whole cycle happens without needing anything from me.

Early

2009-02-05T06:00:00.003-05:00

Five forty five am, and the trains sound at the same time they always have for at least my forty years. I hear them here, in this house just a couple miles from the house where my father would wake me up to go with him. To deer hunting, to Mass, to who knows where else. Before light, feeling the hundred pound weight of early, the trains announced a whole world of already awake.

A Dusting

2009-02-03T21:37:00.003-05:00

Snow, light but catching the outer stubble of the used-to-be-green spaces; coating the roofs of cars like skull caps. On the hood of the old truck is a snow outline of the structure beneath, bare in the warm spots, leaving the impression of some weird square snow angel. This is what they call a dusting; but here, these days, it might be the season's big snow. Not enough, not close.

Cold Spaces

2009-01-31T20:23:00.003-05:00

The old wood floorboards push cold up through the soles of my feet. I know it's a real cold one when in the spaces between—when the furnace is not chugging—the chill comes back in and disassembles the warm. The cats curl on the radiators or bundle themselves at our feet on the bed. We each migrate towards the heat we can find and thaw enough to fall asleep.

Over and Over

2009-01-31T20:16:00.003-05:00

Driving home, that song on the stereo. A newly found song I play over and over, it has this sweet spot that breaks my heart over and over; like when I played Shades of Scarlet Conquering again and again in my bedroom at sixteen. There will come that part when I can let the sky fall in my chest, here, where no one's looking. A cleansing, an exorcism of ghosts that never left.

False Sense

2009-01-31T20:10:00.003-05:00

In my second mind I am everything that I am not; not yet. There are the multitude of notions and wish-fors that not only do I reach for with vigor but have already wrapped my arms around. This second mind whispers into the ear of my first mind; and my first mind says that it is just fine to go back to bed, to sleep. Because one day, upon waking, I will be who I really am.

More South

2009-01-25T18:48:00.006-05:00

Driving south, more south than my south, not my beaten path so I see everything. Things I've seen before, the cigarette factory and the chemical plant where I worked once. It feels good, this road, like I never remembered it; today it feels like leaving. What if I were leaving this city again for an anonymous somewhere else? Today, more south might suit just fine.

Not Words

2009-01-23T15:57:00.002-05:00

Life, not words; this is what I hear myself saying to myself, as if there were no bridge between the two. There was a time that words were home, more than home itself. But now I would rather do many, many things besides revisiting the house where I grew up. Life, not words. As if something grows cold and dies when I turn inward. I want to stay out and alive just a little longer.

What Came Before

2009-01-20T16:39:00.003-05:00

Six years ago this house became ours to have our way with. Seven years ago we decided to join each other in our parallel lives. We are together now, we said; and we live here now, we said. Sometimes I wake up forgetting what that means, forgetting this tree has long fingery roots and has grabbed hold of me as deep as my vertebrae. What came before will never matter as much.

Arctic Beach

2009-01-20T16:33:00.003-05:00

This beach has not been a wilderness since before the bridge was built between here and everywhere else. But the cold makes it wild again, wild enough for me, for us; us and the dogs. On a busy day we see a fisherman about a hundred yards away. Today, thirty degrees and windless, we own this large slice of the infinite horizon, not anyone else's favorite place today but ours.

Cold Falls

2009-01-20T16:26:00.002-05:00

Cold falls like a firm hand pressing the breathable air out of the atmosphere, and everything is more silent. I walk out of work, late for home, for a long weekend, and I am alone. Into the fleshless walls of the parking deck I walk in the dark hearing not even the sound of my own feet. It would be easy to imagine the world actually ended and I am only just now taking notice.

The Absence of Bob

2009-01-15T20:49:00.003-05:00

The bubble froth floats in the iron tub, and Bob the cat is missing. Not from our lives, not from the house; not even from the bathroom. Bob has grown big enough to stop trusting his agility. He used to jump and tiptoe on the edge of the tub, dipping his face down to a clearing on the water's surface. Bob sits on the rug, waiting for a safer minute, when the water drains.

Air Practice

2009-01-15T20:39:00.003-05:00

We've gotten used to the low drone; we don't have to look up anymore. If we did, we would see more helicopters. Not the kind buzzing over highway cloverleaves looking for tangles; these have roomy green bodies like preying mantises with propellor hats. This is not a war zone, but in a moment, could it be? It must be practice for someone about to go somewhere else.

The Engine

2009-01-08T19:16:00.002-05:00

The furnace roars awake; the solid churning machine, the engine of the house. When I first walked through, seeing our future in the walls and and circular flow of rooms, the basement was the final frontier. What's down there, I said, will determine everything. And there it was, the chugging mass, not so old, beating like a twenty-year-old heart. It said to me, say yes.

Hearing

2009-01-07T21:33:00.003-05:00

The new chimes out back sound off like harbor bells; then I hear the trains from a dozen blocks away. And hours ago hail hammered down, the wrong kind of ice for January. Disparate things collecting and presenting themselves to me, my ears surprised with it all, like some blind taste test — this one the sea, that one the rail yards, then the deep and thick of summer. I close my eyes and the world expands.

Late Night Home Repair

2009-01-06T20:37:00.000-05:00

Up to my armpit in lint, I reach deeper than hell into the dryer vent. I expect I could pull anything out, a tired old wig, a dead animal, the old bones of someone else's arm. What if, my manic neurons ask me, something pulled from the other end? Would my wife hear me from her half sleep through the ceiling, floor and bed covers? Then in a minute I am done, pulled out safely in time for sleep.

Little Heads

2009-01-03T12:07:00.002-05:00

Splitting dozens of Brussels Sprouts in half, cracking little heads wide open to see the thousand little thoughts in each one; is this what my own brain would look like if weighed and bought for public use? I see nothing in these tiny brains that I can transcribe; some kind of braille my fingers can't read. But it made sense to someone or something, it must have, long before these reached me and my knife.

Wild Exits

2009-01-03T10:43:00.005-05:00

On highway exits, I watch the land that no one else wants; the tiny forest or meadow inside the curling ramp. A wilderness that might stay a wilderness, except for the lint floating down from a thousand passersby. This is the kind of place that we herded our own natives to; land no one else wanted, not yet. On one exit I saw a turkey once, regal and grand, holding on to all the wild that was left.

Not Mine

2009-01-03T10:22:00.003-05:00

The world I was born into, a hard egg, the visage of a mother and father and almost nothing else. The deceptive cheer of my father, a sometimes angry god, the master of the universe. My mother under his wing, a fragile mule, wit beyond measure, disastrous and sad. They left nothing behind except what I do not want; the debris of a thousand disappointments that are not mine.

Noah

2009-01-03T10:04:00.003-05:00

A phone call, a feeling over dinner that we must call now, and we are transported more than two thousand miles just in time. There is a baby now where there used to be none, or nothing but the expectation of so much. It is real because we hear him crying, out of pain or weariness or bliss, alive and awake. A slow flash, being born; there is nothing else happening anywhere but there.

Windy

2009-01-01T20:51:00.002-05:00

A scraping wind pulls the lids off of trash cans, blows the whole world sideways and I watch from indoors. I listen, things bang and tumble, things I can't name trailing behind the world's exhale like cans tied to a car tearing down the block. Wind like this disorients, turns me around and pours dirt in my eyes, like some metaphor for tribulation or the hard way through.

Room

2009-01-01T20:25:00.002-05:00

I stand in the spare bedroom and remember when I just wanted this, space to spare, room to move. More than one room to sleep in, more than one room to live in. After years of apartments too close to other people's lives; shared ceilings and walls bled talk, movements from all sides. This house is mine, the first mine worth having, less than two thousand square feet, a kingdom.

Last Day

2009-01-01T20:11:00.003-05:00

Fake candles put off a soft glow in our bedroom windows; the whole house freshly scoured for company who will cross over into the new year with us. No one will come until morning, this night is for us to see each other only on the last day of what felt like a long cycle. We sleep, we wake before the sun comes up, just like plenty of other days, in each other's arms.

For me, too

2008-12-27T19:48:00.003-05:00

A flat, leggy chicken keeps company with more full-figured wooden squirrels and moose; long sparkly white icicles with warm, colored globes of light. I sit in my chair across from this Christmas tree, the one I picked out, stood by steadfastly while Chris explored the lot for other options. A smallish, crooked glowing thing; my clue, my symbol that this holiday is for me, too.

Old House

2008-12-24T14:59:00.003-05:00

From the bathroom, this house looks like the old farmhouse it might have once been. Not encumbered with a shower head or curtain, the claw foot tub looks like one my grandmother might have used when she was a little girl. The cabinet, second-hand, hand painted, could have been born here with the house seventy years ago. I feel now like I have been born here, too.

The Chill

2008-12-23T20:37:00.003-05:00

The leaves on the rhododendron fold lengthwise and bow low, as if curling inward against the cold. Trees shed and go bare in winter; this bush stays put, keeps everything, shows everything when the chill comes. I sit on the porch and feel it for myself, my first stepping out after a few days of sick. In pajama shorts I curl up too, not ready yet to go back inside.

The Great Fall

2008-12-21T13:43:00.004-05:00

Twenty-two years ago, this day was a Sunday too. This was the day my father, like a great giant, fell. Not from a tree, like he had years before that, surviving in traction with a broken pelvis. This time he fell from bed, knocked still by a blood clot; still, except for one hand, gripping an aspirin. None of us thought he would stay down. But three days later, his eyes told me goodbye.

Waiting for Breath

2008-12-18T20:25:00.003-05:00

It's when I notice my own breath, how I have to pull it in like a thin rope, how the lack of it pushes at my eyeballs, how it leaves behind a burn and a cough. If it weren't for that, I would not think about it, not the way I notice wind in trees or rain blown sideways. To not notice feels like a gift, the one I earned in the children's wards of hospitals, behind oxygen tents waiting.

Waking Up

2008-12-18T20:07:00.002-05:00

From the bathroom window, I watch the rain tap, drip down; pooling on the flat roof. It's like watching music being played with the sound turned off. Light inside, dark outside like predawn or a nap that stretched across the borders of the afternoon. Time outside of time, the distortion of just waking up. The silence before the gears engage and the stillness ends.

Autumn Closing

2008-12-11T19:18:00.003-05:00

Yellow leaves, almost petal shaped, shake down from the pear tree under the weight of heavy rain. This tree is the last to hold on; the nakedness of everything else makes the yellow yellower. A surrender, autumn closing its eyes, I open my own hands to let go of whatever is left of the no longer present. Today the leaves are falling, have fallen, and the tree is still here.

Shoulder Season

2008-12-10T21:26:00.006-05:00

Water swells in what they call shoulder season. It carries the burden of the change, from winter to thaw. There are still places one can't go; where white caps of mountains and slopes could warm up enough to lose grip. There are places we could not see; waterfalls, wilderness. What we have is this water, growing bigger and milkier, from ice and silt washing down and away.

Flurries

2008-12-08T19:35:00.003-05:00

Surprised in the morning by the white crusty lacework, left sometime when I was not here to see the quiet softness fall. This feels like the coldest winter in some time; about time, we say, we who wish this were the mountains. I feel that feeling again, what it was like turning on skis in deep snow. Snow that falls for months without melting, no matter how the sun shines.

December Beach

2008-12-07T21:49:00.003-05:00

A bleached, swept roadway; we know it, see it behind our eyelids when we are only wishing we were here. Sand creeps over the lines on the asphalt, into our winter shoes, into my eyes and mouth, where I taste salt on the grit. I will not touch the water this time, but feel fondly beaten by it, by the exhales it hurls across the parts of the earth it can't reach with its fingers.

My Cricket Dream

2008-12-07T21:35:00.003-05:00

In this dream I am a shepherd, a guardian. Across the city, some city somewhere, we traverse one small grass blade or concrete crack at a time. Me, and a cricket. I feel close love, a familiarity. It is either not an option, or just not okay, to pick up my bug and whiz him (he is a him) to the outskirts of town, where he will continue without me and I will have to let him go.

In Here

2008-12-07T21:23:00.002-05:00

Words swirl in an orbit, I sit in a chair, the kind they call easy. The dogs stretch on their backs in the warm bake of the gas logs. Words from four different books; the tao, the blues, the counting of syllables and lines, the nature of meaning from four different directions. Somewhere is the center, but not out there. In here. This swirl, us, unfixed objects in our own glow.

Happy Forty

2008-12-01T21:07:00.002-05:00

Sometimes I forget there was a time when I was without her; or even that she is a separate person from me. Maybe I've made her up, my perfect other. I knew her when I heard her voice, when I saw her thick, black hair traced with some grey. Today she is a little greyer, tomorrow she will be forty. I am hungry for more decades, more of her natural, brilliant joy.

Bryan Park

2008-11-30T18:32:00.005-05:00

Planned wilderness, tailored with stone paths and walls; wide, tidy greens and thick spurts of forest. One of the city's parks, I rambled there as a child, at birthday parties or on days when our mothers didn't know what else to do with us. And later, when I didn't know what to do with myself, I took my bike there and rode around, and around. A second, outside home.

Third Day

2008-11-29T08:18:00.002-05:00

Free of the expectations of that first day, where we did everything and said, what a good day. The next day sank like a cave under the weight of what now. What about the things that escape notice or attention while our lives spin like tops, when those things? Third day and I wake not caring, not feeling the usual self-inflicted stabs for choosing what I want, leaving the rest.

Stain Fighting

2008-11-29T07:54:00.003-05:00

Holidays, the smell of winter smoke and the warm, warm giving and getting make me giddy. Then there is a turn I will take, often somewhere in sleep, a stain spreads and I wake into it. I do not have to remember to remember. If it just happens like this, is it the more natural, the more real state for all things to roll backwards, like downhill? Progress says no, absolutely no.

One Hundredth

2008-11-29T07:48:00.002-05:00

A body made of a hundred pieces so far; I may have just shaped out a pinky toe. Or roughed out a thin outline of where a body could be. Not just the creation of something bigger by the dogged little deposits; the persistence itself, the thing before the writing becomes a thing, the being in the doing. I cannot see the body yet, I just know that when I write, I am writing.

Neighbor Down

2008-11-26T20:15:00.003-05:00

Fallen, not breathing, gone grey. His buddy presses on his stomach and he emerges, sucking in deep, blowing out white foam. A mysterious mission interrupted, he dropped while walking across the yard with a chain saw. Adam, we say, help is coming. Not old, he has aged himself drinking like he does. Pulling myself away, I think, another neighbor down.

Walking Backwards

2008-11-26T06:40:00.005-05:00

I walk out of our house through the neighborhood; past the old big houses from long past farm days. And newer little houses from 1960's development days, when my parents bought their first home here. I walk and imagine this land clear, in the beginning, before anything was built; nothing but forest, pasture or swamp, and me walking alone across it for miles.

Remembering

2008-11-24T20:51:00.003-05:00

Land of my own, a volkswagen van, motherhood, trails to nowhere, complete presence. I want, I want, I want. Brought up from an interior stinginess, enforced by the sandpaper of catholic morals, smoothing any edge of longing. Worn down, it can become easier to look over, forget. Did I ever want a thing? Yes. Puppies, scooters, advanced degrees, girls. Now I remember.

Mushrooms

2008-11-24T19:35:00.003-05:00

I feel the stems of mushrooms like twisted tree trunks; I imagine them pulled from a forest floor, popping up in an emerald humid. Pushed up from the ground, issued from it, each one with its own sense of self. I like to buy them as if I picked them, not wrapped in cellophane but loose, natural. I can plow my hand into a bin or bowl and drop fistfuls into my bag.

Before Light

2008-11-22T19:41:00.003-05:00

This morning I am awake before light fills the room. This bed faces east, and without moving I can see the sharp crimson glow of winter dawn through leafless trees. I feel grateful for opening my eyes in time; other mornings I miss it, instead just catching that paler orange, fuzzier crease between the land and sky. I wake up and watch the night shaking hands with the day.

Wanting Things

2008-11-22T19:28:00.002-05:00

Saturday, late afternoon, we do as we please. Right now that means climbing into bed, watching darkness fall. We talk about Christmas and wanting things; we talk about wanting that beautiful thing that terrifies me. My mind twists me up, you don't really want that, it says. Your whole life will change, you will have to give it everything, your heart. Perhaps just what I need.

Grace

2008-11-20T18:26:00.003-05:00

Immaculate place settings greet my sister and I in the green, green dining room; carpet, drapes, wallpaper all shades of a placid sea green. Great Aunt Alice is busy heating the water for oatmeal. For each of us, she doles out one or two prunes into a small china bowl. And for her, there is piping hot tea. Well past 95 years old, she hosts us with a grace she's held since birth.

Sliding Through

2008-11-19T20:55:00.004-05:00

Driving home the cold, cold air makes the outside cleaner, clearer. I watch the lights turn yellow, red, then green and I feel like I've never seen green like this before. It's because I don't want to be anywhere else but in this car, sliding through the dark city. The Chinese restaurant's broad windows show me everything; a scarlet neon open sign screams out, almost joyful.

Mark's Church

2008-11-18T20:02:00.003-05:00

This big and wide front room, two stories high, used to be where all the people sat on Sundays. That was years ago, before it declined, before Mark bought it, made it shine again. A stovepipe shoots straight upward to the high, high ceiling in the center of room. We sit in old wooden dining chairs and stoke a fire, drinking beer; holding a small, kind service between friends.

Marriage

2008-11-18T19:57:00.003-05:00

I cook and she tells me about her day; what she did, what she felt good about, who she someday wants to be. Me in the kitchen, her in the dining room, I tell her she is going to get there from here. She looks at me and says I am so lucky, I could not have found anyone who matches me better than you. She is crying a happy cry, and I smile in agreement. This, I know, is marriage.

Whitegrass

2008-11-16T19:44:00.006-05:00

Snow fell like the sky was pouring it from buckets. No sun, no light but the blinding white flakes, worming their way into our eyes and mouths. We drove in a slow crawl to the small cafe, the center of the ski universe in this little town. We came dressed to kick and glide, but coffee and pie seduced us, kept us sitting, watching the snowfall stick like paste to everything.

Mountain Rain

2008-11-16T19:34:00.002-05:00

The broad front porch curls around the side of the house; from all angles I am looking at a sea of rooftops. Smoke and mist hover, thin layers on top of thicker clouds, all obscuring the mountains behind. On top of this hill in this big old house, I feel the deep chill and watch rain pound its million fists down on every surface. The velocity of it sprays me too, leaves its fingerprints.

Dog Joy

2008-11-14T16:04:00.002-05:00

Wet leaves layered on the asphalt like a slick carpet, even in my rugged shoes I watch my step. I fall easily it seems, on steps, on trails, in port-a-johns. Two pulsing dogs pull me forward, one on each hand. They know the rules by now; we are walking, not shopping for grass salad or cat poo. Still, their electric joy makes me hum, too. Happy to be out in the air; to be, all in one moment.

In Bed

2008-11-13T20:27:00.002-05:00

In bed, Chris sees me writing my five lines, says, can I help? I like helping you. Says, write about Wyoming. Yes, I say, I'll do that. Eight seconds later, she has more ideas. Say this and this, she says. I say, you go write your country song, and I'll write my blog. She laughs because she knows it's funny, then says, I'm not talking to you; I don't even like you. But I know she's lying.

To Wyoming

2008-11-13T19:59:00.003-05:00

Hundreds of miles, we chugged in the minivan all the way to Dubois. In Missouri we smoked cigars with the windows down, at a standstill in mystery traffic. And in the dead center of Kansas our hearts stopped, braking hard, we both said I think that was a coyote. When we arrived, without looking, we found rings we wanted to bind us. Then we turned around and drove home.

Brown Corduroy

2008-11-12T21:16:00.004-05:00

Cold weather brings back to me a sharp, shocking clarity and the justification for winter coats I have loved. This one, brown corduroy, is new from last season. But today, as I absently fingered the buttons, I recalled another coat, my father's brown corduroy. A big bulk of a coat, sizes larger with different buttons, like pebbles, and a warm I will never recover.

Passenger

2008-11-12T21:10:00.004-05:00

The bus rumbles north and I watch the sun rise; it was raining when I woke in the dark, the drops tapping on the back porch roof. But now that's over and an orange glow is spreading across the sky. A passenger, I feel a liberation in not having to look at any particular thing, like the road ahead of me. I look to my right, east, crossing the Occoquan River, illuminated.

The Thaw

2008-11-11T12:22:00.006-05:00

These are the ice fields, I say as we take a marathon drive from Banff to Jasper. Like the top of the world, or a moonscape. The forests fall away and there is only rock and ice. I see signs of thaw; a roaring creek of pale green blue water carves through feet of frozenness. Water springs from everywhere, from rock on the side of the parkway. Water, sun and dust.

British Columbia

2008-11-11T12:10:00.004-05:00

The river grows milkier each day from glacier silt; we've come just in time for melting season. Down the road from our cabin is the town where we eat breakfast and sometimes dinner; a rich, unapologetic, near Bavarian heaviness. At dusk, we troll past the train tracks in our car, watching for the bears that come to scrape up the grain falling from the boxcars.

Disappear

2008-11-11T11:56:00.005-05:00

Water pushes hard, past the waterfall, down through a worn groove of rock; glaciers or snow somewhere above are cracking, melting, falling apart, letting go. We watch it go by, climb further. The trees thin and the land opens up into the valley of the inkpots. I see the ridges continue on in all directions; I know I could disappear if that's what I wanted.

Full

2008-11-08T18:20:00.005-05:00

Under bright yellow leaves we almost swallow our breakfast burritos whole. One dry picnic table despite recent dousings, we have this oasis to ourselves. We could call this morning kind of perfect; from the market we have bags full of greens, potatoes, cilantro, jalapenos; bellies full of eggs and chorizo. A slow happy moment of not needing another thing.

Just Us

2008-11-07T21:47:00.002-05:00

My first double feature; four theatre hours of Newman and Redford. Just my father's speed; western, old-fashioned, good clean fun. It is another recollection of just us; he had four children and only I was there with him. Either no one else said yes or he'd asked only me, because there were things he thought I would enjoy as much as he did. He was usually right.

Almost Over

2008-11-06T07:32:00.002-05:00

Wind twists our chimes until they speak; that and the rain are beginning to rub the trees bald of their leaves. It was just starting to glow outside with the yellow and orange, and now it's almost over. Soon it will just be black brown branches against a grey pink winter sky. But in the side yard, the fading hydrangea still clenches its fist around one obstinate bloom.

Obama

2008-11-05T14:47:00.004-05:00

In the gap between polls closing and any useful information whatsoever, we fell asleep. So hungry to watch history, to take our place in it, raw and spent and despairing. It could be just like the last time, worse. I held my dear wife until she gave herself permission to let go, close her eyes. Hours later I woke, whispering into Chris' drowsy peaceful ear, it's looking good.

Compulsion

2008-11-04T05:28:00.003-05:00

Morning rain visits us in bed on the back and paws of Bob the cat. So presumptive, he heads for the soft white of our still fresh pillows. Awake now, I try to keep hold of that moment of just waking. Seconds of calm, warm stillness in body and mind that I am always chasing myself out of. A stiff compulsion to get up, to fix or finish a thousand creeping demands.

Daylight Savings

2008-11-02T09:20:00.003-05:00

A more sensible morning; my body's clock wakes me up at the same time as yesterday, but today there is light instead of the lingering envelope of night. With our one extra hour, we ignite the day with furious cleaning and cooking, then settle down and watch our longer Sunday unfold. More time, always I beg the universe for more time. Only today, it answers.

Adoration

2008-11-01T18:47:00.004-04:00

Early morning, I am on my stomach, holding on to the slippery tail of sleep. Bob the cat is sitting on my back. I know, I can tell, he is staring at Chris. They have a love and a telepathy, and he wants to wake her with some projected electricity. He stretches out, his paw on the back of my head, his head next to my cheek. I turn as best I can and see him, in vigil.

Neuroses

2008-11-01T18:25:00.003-04:00

In bed before dark, we watch the light go down through the front windows. In the television screen's reflection, I see us, reading. It has been long enough to feel like I've won a struggle, gained some leverage over what came before. But in sleep and other moments, I lose sight and imagine some wave washing it away, leaving me alone with handfuls of sand.

Seizing

2008-10-30T20:00:00.003-04:00

We stand in her kitchen, talking. It's an abnormally normal moment with my mother. Ordinary things are said; I am saying something and I suddenly understand that she simply isn't there anymore. All signs of presence have left her eyes and I know she's about to go down. She seizes, a new experience for both of us, and I do what I can to help her fall.

Halloween Eve

2008-10-30T19:51:00.003-04:00

Into the dark evening we walk the dogs, rattled at first by air colder than we expected. Houses in this part of town still have real fireplaces, and we smell burning wood, for us the smell of joy. No light left in the sky, we meant it this way, to better see the halloween exploding in lights, in inflated pumpkins, vampires, bats and ghosts. Better, much better than Christmas.

Somewhere Else

2008-10-29T20:59:00.002-04:00

Looking in her element, my mother sat smiling by the window with a glass of iced tea. We were in a motel room in Times Square, 1985. This was a stillness between the carriage ride in the park and a shopping tour of Chinatown. She had a happy calm, not the false quiet of chronic sadness. We were where she always wanted to be, somewhere else.

Re-Entry

2008-10-28T19:27:00.004-04:00

Golden brown tree tops glow in the late afternoon sun. I stand up from my desk and see just the illuminated tips against a marbly sky. The wind has blown out the rain and left the cold. Loosening my grip, I rise from my work to a new weather system. The day went by without my notice, and now it tells me I missed the world turning a little.

Bird Wrestling

2008-10-27T21:24:00.004-04:00

Two birds grapple in a parking lot. We wonder first if one is bound to the other, one just trying to free itself from a dead body. But they take turns looking like the dead body, and the best that we hope for seems to be true. They are fulfilling nature's imperative to survive. It looks otherwise, like they are killing each other, can't tear away even to save themselves.

Other Than Warm

2008-10-27T21:11:00.003-04:00

Bone cold, the chill becomes an ache and it's easy to confuse tired with afflicted. There is no heating up. I know how it will go tonight; I will bundle up for bed and still shiver until sleep, wake up hours later in an incubated sweat, stripping layers, forgetting I was ever anything other than warm. Tonight and most nights, it's that moment I can't wait for.

Eastern Shore Ride

2008-10-26T13:56:00.003-04:00

Moody October clouds and spit, but still warm enough for short sleeves on my bicycle. This isolated finger of Virginia is like a clearing, of land, of heads, of air. Onancock, Wachapreague, Pungoteague, Machipongo; any turn in the road can change our standing with the wind. We roll through hollows and between farmland, auburn woods and pale amber scrub.

Night Swim

2008-10-23T20:48:00.002-04:00

Some late night on a wide carolina beach, six or eight of us took to the water. New to college, I was happy to be in this new life with new people, doing new things. The mild waves crept over our ankles. We joined hands and in a line walked into the sea, soon a string of bobbing heads, pleased with ourselves. The warm dark wrapped around us like a womb.

Old Truck

2008-10-22T05:01:00.002-04:00

Bouncing like a farm hand to my office job, I strong arm the big tall stick shift. Too loud to hear the radio or a phone, this is two-fisted driving. Left hand keeping me on the road, right hand keeping me in gear. When I'm driving this truck, I'm driving this truck. Utilitarian, honest, throwback, Buddhist. Like a calling, it demands all of me, responsive and present.

Looking Out

2008-10-21T07:14:00.003-04:00

Still dark, I wander upstairs looking outward. The bathroom is full of moonlight; and the back porch bulb makes its make-do roof glow yellow like a honeycomb. The spare bedroom, where a silence and calm lives like nowhere else in the house, I can see out across rooftops eastward. And here, if I wait, I will watch the sun fight its way up through the trees.

Sixteen

2008-10-20T22:05:00.002-04:00

I had my own universe at sixteen; a room of my own and a record player. I bought obscure albums from used bins, examined them in hours alone. This is when I wrote the poems, the epic melancholics, a squeezing of pain from one container into another. Sometimes after spending all the words I had, I looked out the front window at the world outside my head.

Mine

2008-10-19T19:17:00.003-04:00

My father's sweater, always in plain sight, I notice and remember sometimes. This I kept. Poly-blend grey and white, it's what he wore on Saturdays, hunting or napping. It stretched as he did; I wore it after he died until one of the pits wore out. Dead twenty-two years, there's almost nothing left of him. So I keep what I have, balled up, stuffed away, mine.

Autumn Greens

2008-10-18T12:56:00.003-04:00

Swiss chard, collards, mustard greens, kale; I wash and pull the stems. In a line I boil then saute, store, refrigerate. This industriousness fueled by another morning at the market, stoked by my fond remembering that now is the time for greens. Larger, richer, sweeter; they only get better with the cold. Full-leafed abundance, Autumn blooms.

Deep Woods Home

2008-10-16T12:32:00.004-04:00

A remote campsite; more what we had in mind, but not where our tent is pitched. We committed to a small national forest campground down the mountain, still too close to humans. But here, a mile and a half into a hike, we rest as if this was home. Sheltered by maples and hemlocks not a soul but us and a woodpecker. North Creek bubbles past and we doze.

Joanne's Pie

2008-10-12T18:09:00.006-04:00

Yesterday we bought three pies. It seemed extravagant; we didn't know then that Joanne was dead. Our neighbor whittled away by hard years; she and I had a tenderness for each other. I knew this time with the ambulance was different. I knew she would go without me doing as much as I wanted. It happens that way; and it happened that the third pie, blueberry, was really for those left, the ones who helped her go.

Clay Mandala

2008-10-11T14:15:00.004-04:00

No artistry here; I paid two dollars for a twenty-five pound bag of scrap. Red clay, it leaves a wet red residue and dries opaque over my fingernails; I could be up to my elbows on a riverbank. I pound and pull something from as deep as my small intestine. When I'm done, and when it dries, I'll break it up again into dust and let the river take it back.

Hours

2008-10-10T08:48:00.002-04:00

Waiting until morning; it must have been like this (or the origin of this) when everybody went home. Everyone but me leaving the sterile and silent, the dim-lit halls and elevators. Me, I was bound by I.V., bound by oxygen tent, bound by what I was told about what was best for me. And because sleep was also best, even nurses kept away. Awake, I waited for visiting hours.

Booksnobbery

2008-10-09T20:21:00.005-04:00

I am grateful; I chisel through two book chapters, not a chore, but a peaceful exercise. This book is not chasing me through its bulk, keeping me up nights like an itch, tactically planting agonizing devices of suspense. It knows I don't want to be anesthetized; at least not today. Instead I want to learn a new language; to see my own world as new.

Restless

2008-10-08T22:09:00.006-04:00

Our house and its contents have settled; Chris sleeps hard on this first night of ten days off. Even our antsy dog Scout has found this hour when she's wandered enough, scratched enough, sneezed enough. I am alone and awake, listening to our home exhale in the deep rhythm of rest. I am the real restless one; never ever finished, never ready to put down the day.

Fierce Logic

2008-10-07T18:20:00.003-04:00

A radio reporter spoke reverently about Beethoven's piano sonatas; I could see again my grandfather's living room. We sat, much too young for this, listening to him play his grand piano. I wish I could hear what I remember seeing. I know now this music demands study to get beyond the surface sounds, inside the fierce logic, to know it. Just like my grandfather.

Just Tired

2008-10-06T19:02:00.004-04:00

So little sleep last night it's not worth adding up the minutes, I feel what it might have been like to be three. Storms of confusion, euphoria, even tears pass through like a parade. Deep in there is the reasonable me, knowing full well that I could say to every blip, I am just tired. Like a sage in no other way than this, I know I'll feel better in the morning.

Home Body

2008-10-05T15:51:00.003-04:00

Wiping clean the corners of our home, I remember making it ours. I pulled up the old, soiled carpet, hours stretched out on this floor with pliers, fighting long-toothed staples one by one. My brutalized fingers rubbed every quarter inch of this now revived wood. The more I grab hold, cleaning or restoring, the more this home feels like part of my own body.

Market Season

2008-10-04T19:42:00.002-04:00

The first chill strong enough to see it as we exhale, we are picking out tomatoes and swiss chard. It's too early for the crowds, the familiar faces that turn this market into a social event. It's all business this morning. The farmers have brought almost everything, anticipating the end of the season. Sweet potatoes, kale, eggplant; we fill our bags while we can.

House Crazies

2008-10-03T20:30:00.005-04:00

Embarking on the day, we left the house warm and peaceful. Then some strange madness set in. Scout the dog tore on the back door, desperate to get in; Billy the cat tore on the front door, desperate to get out. We came home to splinters and fallen blinds. Hours later now, and everyone is sleeping. As if the nervous terror ghost got what it wanted and left.