My grandmother once rode a train through the middle of a forest fire. I heard the story second-hand from my dad. The family settled in Alpena, he told me, and never returned home to Tower, Michigan. Grandma was four years old. She was born in 1904. Tower is about 15 miles west of Millersburg, 30 miles west of Metz, 60 miles northwest of Alpena, which overlooks Lake Huron’s Thunder Bay. A branch of the Detroit & Mackinaw railroad once connected these towns. On … [Read More...]
Commit Poetry: Printing in My Heart’s Wax
Although I’ve forgotten a lot about my high school years, I do recall a fear of poetry, and letting my eyes roam around the room or stare at my book while I mentally begged the teacher not … [Read More...]
Commit Poetry: The Road Not Taken By Robert Frost
The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it … [Read More...]
Commit Poetry: Prufrock Complete And Worth It All
I grow old . . . I grow old . . . Who starts memorizing poetry at my age? If someone had told me a year ago that I’d be memorizing swaths of poetry now—on purpose—starting with a 131-line T.S. … [Read More...]
Dared: Bikes, Lanterns, and Mary Oliver
After I took that spill on a hill at dusk into a pile of Mackinac Island horse manure some years back, I was afraid to climb back on my bike. But when we moved into this neighborhood carved from the … [Read More...]
Read-to-Write: Nature-Deficit Disorder (1)
I grew up on a lake--practically lived in the woods--and did all kinds of things outdoors that these days would be considered too dangerous. There was little on TV (we got maybe two stations) and no … [Read More...]
Commit Poetry: Ten Reasons Why To Memorize
It remains a mystery why Tweetspeak Poetry chose Prufrock for me to memorize. If they didn’t feel like I was done with Thomas E, or he with me, and they wanted me to extend my brainy … [Read More...]
Stillness
Going Still
Still Saturday: Taking the Day Off
Today Today I’m flying low and I’m not saying a word. I’m letting all the voodoos of ambition sleep. The world goes on as it must, the bees in the garden rumbling a … [Read More...]
Poetry
One Word Less For Lent 2017 – Day 6 – To Look Younger
To Look Younger For the price of a bag of oranges I'll be an ass for my id look ten years younger redefined revitalized renewed the wizard says just follow … [Read More...]
One Word Less For Lent 2017 – Day 5 – Hope of Spring
Hope of Spring Creation's writing love notes, inking jeweled lines on blue parchment and punctuating with a kiss of red. Snow dust spills in sunlight like makeup glitter, … [Read More...]
