Commentary
In the home of my childhood we had no scissors, no flashlight and no scotch tape. Well, that’s not exactly true. We had them all but when they were needed we had no idea where they were. Everyone has one of the drawers that has three thumbtacks, two double A batteries rolling loose, a refrigerator light bulb still in its package and the baster that kept the drawer from closing the first nine times you tried to shove it shut. Well, our house, our entire house was that drawer.
When I first got married my mother in law was standing in my kitchen while I was making our spaghetti dinner.
With a gust of wind, November blows the last of the oak leaves from the branches and the clear November light pours down from the emptied gulf of sky above. Now begins the other autumn, the autumn of spare and austere beauty, the half of the season that follows the glorious autumn of September and October.
With most leaves fallen, the cold sun of November floods the woodlands with light. It shines through the bare branches, reaching clear to the forest floor where, for the past six months, the sun had struck in dappled rays alone.
For all we have
Not all we think we need
For all the mountains
Broad valleys, deepest seas
For all our dreams
Our hopes
The friendships that we gain
For all our loss
Our heartache
All our pain
For all the love
That blesses us with peace
We pray for strength
Sustain us as we seek
To praise this force
That graces us in need
And pray for peace
In every word and deed
— Steve EwingListen
I demand that you listen
my words will find you because you need to hear them
today a friend of mine was shot through the heart.
today a friend of mine passed over much too soon
My friend had four paws
his fur was silver and gray with dapples of black and streaks of
tawny caramel
one eye blue and one eye gold his gaze was gentle and filled with
light
Yes
Chi was a dog
the best kind, the always-loving-bounding-and-wriggling-with-joy
kind of dog
In 2012 women were discovered and many experts stepped forward to discuss them. Electoral candidate Todd Akin was able to enlighten us all when he decided that a woman could not become pregnant if she was “legitimately” raped. There was another expert on the same topic, candidate Richard Mourdock, who also seemed to be incredibly well informed about women and rape. There was a summer-long discussion about how women will vote, and what matters to them. Women were everywhere we looked, except that no woman seemed to have spoken on the topic.
My first description of Dickie Becker as a fisherman who works when it’s light and sleeps when it’s dark and that’s why he only needs one outlet, might have given you the impression that he is a simple man. Dickie Becker is not a simple man. The truth is that Dickie passes out in a chair well before it gets dark. Same diff, I guess. Dickie is a lobsterman which, when you think about what happens to a lobster, being caught, cooked and ripped limb from limb actually requiring a bib to catch flying body parts, could put him in the category of aiding and abetting a monster.