Saturday, Feb. 25

Islands, archipelagos, peninsulas
shores of cement curb
channels of blacktop
wavecrests of parking lines rippling.
Navigate if you can around the currents
in convoy, cars tacking one way
then another, weaving
towards the torrent pouring nearby
ready to set sail.

Friday, Feb. 24

Isaac Stern plays music

sweet and strong and lifting 

even if in black & white 

with Jack Benny muddling 

the same tune in comic counterpoint. 

I pause, making coffee, wondering 

where those rich & full memories are 

when I’m not using them. 

Buck dozes, nodding, smiling.

Thursday, Feb. 23

Easter still seems so distant
plenty of time to prepare
hours left to share
resistant to the idea of a conclusion
insistent that immediate needs be met.
There at the arrival of the ending
will I regret my readiness
less than it could have been
might have been
should have been.

Ash Wednesday

Grey is the color of the sky, the street, the ashes

Earl Grey is the tea of spring, of Lent, of modest sacrifices

Grit melts and grinds along the sidewalks as winter ends, grey & gravelly

Imposing ashes leaves grey traces not easily scrubbed out of the ridges & whorls of my thumb

Shrove Tuesday

When the sun starts standing up straighter,

the heat passing deeper into the soil,

days are not just longer but brighter, warmer.

Before tree buds become leaves, they’re

tuning forks vibrating just below audible sound,

a tone making the soggy landscape quiver, shaking with light.

Looking at re-activating this blog!

 After nine years on Facebook, it might just be time to look at some new uses of this platform . . . stay tuned! Don't expect too much too soon, but I'm looking at options.

Just one more thing . . .

By the way, feedback is more than welcome! These short-short stories were done for a variety of venues over the last ten years, and don't look for more coherence than comes with the month of December as a setting. But any other reaction you have to scenes & characterization & dialogue is more than welcome. My gmail address is on the author page.

Time to reactivate this blog . . .

I've been pretty much all Facebook, blogishnesswise, the last two years; this blog was my link park for interesting stuff to show Joyce. Time to use it as a feed-blog for the Amazon Author Page (since I can't see how to route FB to it, suspect they don't want that, and a Feed from Blogspot is easy as mince pie with slowly melting ice cream). Greetings, and try "Winter Stories" . . . and tell your friends!

We'll see what I do with this.

Ah, Frances.

http://www.francesmayesbooks.com/about/

Campbell the hard way . . .

http://www.piney.com/Lockereasonableness.html

Ayup.

http://thedanashow.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/letter-to-the-editor/

FDR, June 6, 1944

http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/fdr-prayer.htm

Notes for the Last Will and Testament of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

http://www.mun.ca/rels/restmov/people/acampbell.html

Whoops. "adjusted," eh?

http://camirror.wordpress.com/2009/11/22/these-will-be-artificially-adjusted/

It's the Cookie Cutter That Really Gets You

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1228630/How-Hitlers-Nazi-propaganda-machine-tried-Christ-Christmas.html

There's Yer Problem

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2009/1005/taxes-financial-aid-college-roughing-up-middle-class_print.html

Global . . . Something

http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/29/dr-holdrens-ice-age-tidal-wave/

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/07/opinion/07friedman.html

Gore Vidal Continues To Amaze

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/the_way_we_live/article6854221.ece

Outer, Inner - GKC

"The outer ring of Christianity," wrote G. K. Chesterton in Orthodoxy, one hundred years ago, "is a rigid guard of ethical abnegations and professional priests; but inside that inhuman guard you will find the old human life dancing like children, and drinking wine like men; for Christianity is the only frame for pagan freedom."
His next sentence is as chilling as the previous is warming. "But in the modern philosophy the case is the opposite; it is its outer ring that is obviously artistic and emancipated; its despair is within."

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/septemberweb-only/135-51.0.html

Newt on Health Care

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204488304574425324084867640.html