James Crews: A Few Things I Have Learned
Watching birds will save you on a daily basis—the shaggy barred owl clinging to a pine branch with its deadly claws, eyes lazing in the glaze of a winter morning, head swiveling back and forth.
Bhikshuni Vasetthi: Oh, My Heart
I called out to my grief and drew it toward me.
I held my grief and gently rocked it.
Shh, I said. There, there. There, there.
Video: The Ref
A referee struggles to maintain control over a 2nd grade basketball game.
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer: The Prayers
I had not imagined drowning
was the way to reach the shore.
Elizabeth Gargano: Why We Should Try Talking to the Dead
After my father’s death, my mother kept talking to him.
Neil Shepard: Local Freeze
Flat lines of black clouds
rolled over the Everglades, pelting the land with cold rain,
then, briefly, almost impossibly, hail, over the wetlands and dredged
fields, reminding us how fragile the grapefruits and oranges.
Walt Whitman: Come Up from the Fields Father
Open the envelope quickly,
O this is not our son’s writing, yet his name is sign’d,
O a strange hand writes for our dear son, O stricken mother’s soul!
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer: Embracing the Mess
I like it best when the memories are everywhere—
and I stumble over the ghosts of wooden train tracks,
trip on the spot where you used to do push-ups
Charles Bukowski: Consummation of Grief
I even hear the mountains
the way they laugh
up and down their blue sides
Laure-Anne Bosselaar: Infinitives
To dust it — not often enough. To stare at it — too often.
To never open it anymore. Keep his ashes hidden.
Therigatha: Fall on your knees and weep
If you really want to cry for somebody,
why not cry for yourself?
Why not cry for all of us,
who are just passing through?
Doug Anderson: We Get Old, We Get Sick
How we stumble, are glib
in the face of our fear
when we might show
our own raw heart
Video: Clouds over Corippo
Watching Clouds Over Corippo (2019) feels something like seeing a series of Romantic landscape paintings brought to haunting life.
Video: Durango
Durango follows Aaron and TJ through aimless days spent diving from cliffs, lighting fireworks and chatting about girls, as the siblings’ uncertain future lingers in the background.
