How to follow a spark
When I was a child and was naughty (not really naughty but perhaps headstrong and wayward), my father would occasionally say to me, “Are you a witch or are you a fairy or are you the wife of Micheal Cleary?” … Continued
The Practice of Submitting
Well, I certainly didn’t mean to be gone so long. Unfortunately, when things get super busy, my personal writing gets shuffled to the bottom of the stack – so for the last two months I have been all Kachemak Bay … Continued
Resurrection
For some people, the story of resurrection begins with a cross. For me, it begins with song. Yesterday morning, walking the dog beneath a grey sky, collar turned up against a chill breeze, I heard the first calls of the … Continued
The Wobble
Alaska is in that wobbly season when we can have a 40 degree, perfectly blue sky, sunny day followed by sub-zero, grey sky, snow falling. I remind myself each year that March and April are cold months. Often grey months. … Continued
Holding two things
This morning, an unseen wind illuminated by an unseen light source manifested as a great bright spume of snow lifting from the peaks across the bay. The mountains lay, as they always do this time of year, like a pale … Continued
A Handhold
What handholds have you? When all around you there is difficulty – some of the season, some of the cycle, some of the seemingly endless pandemic, some of the suffering of others, some of the suffering of ourselves? I have … Continued
To dig heels into
I am not ashamed to admit that I have a large personal library of poetry collections. Because poetry books have narrow spines making them hard to identify at a distance, I keep them in meticulous alphabetical order by poet’s last … Continued
Isolation and Poetry
It has been by inch and trickle that the continued isolation and stress of COVID has covered the person I want to be. The person who has friends and laughs a lot and has time to walk on the beach. … Continued
Listening to the body
The body is always talking to us. This week, for me, included a recurring cricopharyngeal spasm – or in other words, a cramp in one of the muscles of my pharynx, typified in my case by the feeling of a … Continued