Gerald Fleming: Work
Today you’ll work in the room behind the barn. For years there’s been a stain on the sheetrock where the rain drips in, and the place smells of rot, and when the other day you yanked off a chunk of sheetrock, thinking might be rotten wood in there, thinking you’d maybe have to replace a few studs, you found, in that damp place, everything rotten.
Sydney Lea: How-to for Older Age
you won’t know that squall in the soul
as when you pondered your place in the world.
Whatever that was, now is.
Althea Romeo Mark: Sunrise in the Afternoon
I wonder if the crying is one of pain, of boredom or of frustration from being imprisoned in a body that no longer works or obeys her will.
Rachel Hadas: Screen and Dream
It wasn’t a dream, but the experience was dreamlike: across the computer screen, one day last week, a photograph of my father, sent by some well-meaning distant acquaintance, flashed without warning. In this black-and-white photo, Moses Hadas is sitting at the desk in his office…
Video: Maurice
Everything would be fine. Maurice had made up his mind. Pick a date, announce his retirement, sell the car, see old friends, and empty the garage. Then, die with dignity.
Paul Christensen: The Muse of Memory
Nothing stirs but the wind that rattles rain gutters and pulls on the hinges of blistered shutters. A pair of boots has been left out on a patio of gray flagstones, the mud still clinging to their heels like forgotten promises.
Michael Simms: The Turn
It’s the old dancers that fascinate me.
Training everyday as the body resists,
The spirit lifts them into clarity.
Video: Anne Lamott | 12 Truths I Learned from Life and Writing
If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.
Doug Anderson: Prancing
I remember sitting on the sofa in my grandparent’s house–my day care center–watching television with my grandfather.
Paul Christensen: Three Cheers for Autumn
I woke up this morning to a chill in the air. I closed the bedroom windows and shivered into my clothes, then hurried down to the kitchen to consult the … Continue reading
Cristina Robinson, et al: Complex birdsongs help biologists piece together the evolution of lifelong learning
Our human ability to learn language slows down as we get older, but scientists are not sure how or why this happens. An unexpected way to understand this learning process might come from listening to birds sing.
Karen Friedland: Tattered Curtains
they’re taking down
all the big trees in his back yard,
and next the shrubs, and now the small house itself
Ira Sadoff: Emendation
I don’t have to go back
To my childhood, there’s nothing there
I still want…
