• Poetry

    Heliocentric

    Laughing at Icarus as you watched him fall,you built your fortress: a heavy investment in happiness.Imagining a life of light suffusing the courtyard,you made the walls high and covered the ground with mirrors. But the sun will not be told…

  • Thoughts

    Free Yourself

    Early in life, we build cages to protect ourselves. From the inside they look the way Wonder Woman’s jet does from the outside: invisible. Sometimes other people see what we’ve built and furnished and comfortably live inside, but in order…

  • Poetry

    Autry’s Humility

    It was love and it was desperation.It was need and pure charity. It wasn’t perfect. Only God is. But it was enough to save a life. Thank you, Reynolds Price, for writing “Endless Mountains.” Thank you, Mom, Dad, God? Whoever…

  • Thoughts

    Silent War

    I have been engaged in a war since birth, as has each and every one of you. I bet you didn’t know that. Don’t feel bad; neither did I. The enemy is good. It has endless resources, recruits, and weapons…

  • Thoughts

    What State Do You Live In?

    My writing used to be characterized by perfect first sentences. Dennis would marvel at the way I’d struggle until a deadline to write something, then, at the last minute, craft the perfect opening line and have all the other words…

  • Thoughts

    What We Carry

    The biggest digital camera I own, an Olympus E-M1X, is on my desk (it even has a flash attached) because I didn’t put away last night after downloading the memory card. I had brought the camera to my son’s place…

  • Poetry

    Where Meaning LIVES

    We spend minutes, days, years,as if we are keeping score. Did you read the book,ace the test,.graduate? Who lives longest?Who keeps it together until...death do us part? How long until the nest is empty,the career is history,what you’ve sown is…

  • Thoughts

    Three Reminders

    Conformity to a religion and adherence to its dictates neither indicates nor proves an authentic, healthy, loving relationship with God or with other humans (sometimes referred to as “neighbors”). Fear is not love. Sometimes ugly art is absolutely necessary.

  • Thoughts

    Open to Life

    As I’ve written previously, I was raised Catholic and tried most of my life to get the right answers so I could be an outstanding one, but that wasn’t the end goal. The end goal was to get to heaven,…

  • Thoughts

    Boxer Brains

    The Art Therapy Way: A Self-Care Guide by Kendyl Arden is the latest in the string of books on trauma and healing that I’ve acquired. Filled with 50 art therapy exercises, the book begins with a great explanation of why…