I’m still learning the lesson of the birds. The one about sitting in the cover of spruce needles wearing the colors of fire and not questioning my birdness. Just letting it happen. Not questioning the tides of daylight and nightfall that inhabit me, that rinse my memory clean of silt and jagged edges and leave me singing about sitting in the cover of spruce needles wearing the colors of fire. I’m still learning that lesson […]
I take the pack of index cards out of my shirt pocket, slide the rubber band off, and lay them on the table. Hafiz has prepared a few placards and set them up at credible intervals. They read, “No Way, José,” “I Sure Hope Not,” “Why, Of Course!” “Prepare Yourself For Tears,” and “Jesus Christ!” I take a breath and shuffle the cards. Place them in a neat pile on the table. The first card […]
My plan, Hafiz, is to start a movement. A beautiful groundswell. It will involve festivals, of course, local chapters, iconic images, bylaws, speeches that change everything and people who don’t bathe mixing happily with those who do. Food stands. Woven hats. And yes, a cool logo. It will have green in it for sure. The thing is that it must be worldwide— everywhere that people are. And some places they’re not, too. How great would […]
I came in the door grunting like a bison with four empty stomachs and a calf at home with a head cold, dragged a toe on the threshold and nearly sent five half-shredded bags of heart healthy fruits and vegetables two bottles of heart healthy wine a heart healthy dark chocolate bar and a glass bottle of the most perfect most heart healthy cold-pressed olive oil Mother Nature could produce shooting across the floor in […]
Eternity sometimes feels like a boundless readiness coiled up and squashed into every point there is, like a swoop of clowns hidden inside a mote of pixie dust that’s hovering in the air just a foot or two in front of your left eye, all of them banging on the glass and reciting plays and brewing antidotes and tuning chainsaws and singing scales and lighting firecrackers and twitching with anticipation in there, just waiting on […]
“There are these moments, Hafiz, when it feels like Life called a thirty-second time-out or something. Do you know what I mean? Like when you’re getting ready for work, and you’re five minutes too early. Or you show up to the store, but it’s not open for another couple minutes. What are you going to do with five empty minutes?” Hafiz and I were drift-hopping through the moon’s first arboretum like tired helium balloons caught in […]
The electric yellow moped caught my attention because it was bright as an eye exam, despite the distance, and because it was tracing a gentle line through space, humming its way along a cock-eyed geodesic around the hill. My focus collapsed, and I lost myself into a cloud of blank-faced calculations. When I came back from wherever it is I went, I was convinced the small vehicle and it’s intriguing cargo were very likely inbound. […]
It started with an idea, as these things usually do. “I need your help with something,” I said. Hafiz was working on his Nerf ball free throw. “I’m listening.” His face was an expressionless intensity, but the perforated foam hope fell short of the mark. He seemed to savor the data point. Silent as a feather in long term storage, the ball hit the knob on the closet door, rolled across the floor and settled […]
Once I was mumbling under my breath about a feeling that kept coming back to roost in the lee of my chest like a forlorn and beaten pigeon– a feeling like I was mumbling at altitude and couldn’t get enough air inside of me on the upstroke, or like I was gonna’ blow my own heart’s timing belt if I did anything too, too crazy… …like play a few rounds of Truth or Dare with Hafiz. […]
This place as we call it, so full of needs, is the silence turned inside out– a realm of voices and wilderness– as if the crumpled piece of paper with our Meaning written on it couldn’t be found by our groping alone and so the satchel with Everything in it had to be turned over and shaken loose onto the table, spilling out moons and raindrops, car keys, a flock of herons, thresholds and nooks full […]
Embracing Forever 