Poetry

  I have loved men who love dirt, who stump the hand-plow deep in earth, tilt and twist it, testing whether this year’s toil will break their backs or open wet and loose, men who lift gift bags of baby … Continue reading →

Fincastle, Virginia: 1808 When trees cast their shadows in a long line, their gathered shade brushing the nearest tree’s trunk & branches, they may be cleared in a single roiling wave. Cuts must be well-placed. The wedged mouth of the … Continue reading →

St. Louis, Missouri, 1810 I thank providence for directing the whale to us; and think Him much more kind to us than he was to Jonah, having Sent this monster to be Swallowed by us in Sted of Swallowing of … Continue reading →

St. Louis, 1812 In town, chimneys fall like wasps’ nests broomed from eaves. The bricked streets chasm into maws. Bells rang as far away as Boston, the papers claim, whole forests dragged into fissures, the big muddy calved & stalling … Continue reading →

  Having accidentally thrown out their decade old sourdough culture, the bakers at Park Avenue come to my friend Nick at the Sweet Grass & ask, can he find it in his heart to share a dollop of starter with … Continue reading →

Heart of my innermost doll-child; heart of petit fours on a tray; you are a bonfire upon which children spit, waiting for their ride back from the Museum of Science and Industry, where they espy an interactive coalmine, and the … Continue reading →

“Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?” — Twelfth Night  It’s not all cakes and ale. Sometimes it’s ale and cakes. At least one of us knew his ale and cakes. He … Continue reading →

For JR One can leap from a pulpit in a suit of feathers or march on Washington. Only a maniac gives his life without dying if you count each war stopped, all the years of perseverating you didn’t believe in … Continue reading →

“The Birnam Oak and its neighbour the Birnam Sycamore are thought to be the sole surviving trees of the great forest that once straddled the banks and hillsides of the River Tay. This forest is celebrated in Shakespeare’s Macbeth as … Continue reading →

The grandmother smiled like sleep in the way jaws sag and rooms smell like the past. But her familiar face merely embellished a nightie worn by death itself, which mistook you for why you came like a forest whatever’s in … Continue reading →