28 October, 2016 This is about death and dying. I thought of it for no reason except that I was inspired by a photo of a maple leaf in its autumn colours of deep red and eggplant purple. From the moment we are born, the thread that represents our lives…

You will always be little on the inside, no matter how old you grow. As long as I am alive in the world, your first moments here will be remembered. I will remember your first squall of indignation even before your father cut the umbilical cord, how purple your angry…

Though your eyes have lost their shine And your fur has now gone thin I see my dear old teddy bear, My pal through everything Adventures in the world I remember them as new Pony rides and picking flowers With me, myself, and you. Best friend, now we are old …

A Wisconsin summer seems to die more gracefully, more subtly than it is born. For its raucous birth is heralded by spring storms and short-lived fragrant blossoms meant to coax bees out of their winter beds. But we barely note its silent fading, begun somewhere in August here in the…

I am currently enjoying late middle age. I have a lot of friends of a similar age, and many who are of the same generation as my son, as well as some who are even younger. One or two could be my grandchildren. There is a kind of unspoken clique…

A prayer I wrote after contemplating a toy mouse left behind by one of the cats. I imagined the toy mouse lisping this prayer to its feline owner. O Thou Goddess of Mouses (Excerpt from a tiny volume tucked behind the attic sewing machine. It is believed to be a…

I wrote this some years ago so that I would never forget. Sadly, there are those who have forgotten the shock of this day nineteen years on. And for some, it has been eclipsed by more recent horrific tragedy and the current administration’s purposely flaccid response. I was in my…

I am a performer at Bristol Renaissance Faire. I volunteer to spend every weekend there from June rehearsals through Labor Day. It is a labor of love. There I get to work with puppets, play guitar, sing, hug friends and strangers alike, and admit them all into the boisterous, teeming…

My mother’s parents, the ones my brother and I refer to as Grama and Grampa, lived on Sycamore Street in Sycamore, Illinois when we were young. We drove out there through the northern Illinois countryside to see them frequently. My mother was close to her parents, and she was their…