______________ When in the crucible of a difficult life change, I went to be by the sea, to clear my head, to open my heart, to imagine next steps. What I found was the beauty and resilience of life waiting under my trouble and all trouble. It helped me look beneath my pain and confusion to remember that while what happens when we’re alive can be alarming and disappointing, the fact that we’re alive is all that matters. In this... Read more

______________ During his last year, my father suffered four strokes and a heart attack. We watched him be yanked back and forth between life and death. This piece was written during this time. Where the Snow Begins Snapped in the slack of a crisis that sleeps and roars but doesn’t seem to end, my ninety-three year-old father now has a urinary infection from the catheter, which makes him less coherent. I’m on the phone with him daily, swimming in his... Read more

______________ It seems the purpose of story is to lead us back to what matters and to show us how everything is a part of something larger. And it seems the story of our individual lives keeps showing us how we all go together and come together, once we put down our stubbornness. It seems our individual story helps us work out our relationship with all things dark and light. It helps to remember that without darkness or shadow, it... Read more

______________ Sooner or later, just by living, we are reduced to what matters, as so many things we thought were important and irreplaceable are broken or snapped like small branches in a storm. And somehow, we stand taller with less coverings. It is then we begin to feel gratitude, even though it’s hard to be grateful for what is difficult. In this regard, all poems are expressions of truth and gratitude.   I Bow To All I keep telling strangers... Read more

______________ Leaving and being left is such a painful part of life that it’s hard to make sense of its place in a living Universe. This poem is one attempt. Leaving How hard it is to leave or be left. Sending someone away because violence is near. Or selling all you have so a child might have a ticket to a better life. Or those torn from each other because the ship could hold no more. Or inexplicably when the... Read more

______________ I was enroute to see my father one more time, deplaning in Detroit, about to make my connection to LaGuardia, when my sister-in-law called me to tell me that he was gone. I’m stumbled about on the jet-way, finding the next gate. I wrote this poem on the way home. On My Way I’m on my way as the police are pronouncing him dead. And everything around him— the IV, the bedpan, the doc- umentaries he loved to watch,... Read more

______________ I’d like to share this poem for all of those viewers who were moved enough by it to ask me where they could find it. Unfortunately, this poem is in a book that’s now out of print, but here it is for you to share and enjoy.   Freefall If you have one hour of air and many hours to go, you must breathe slowly. If you have one arm’s length and many things to care for, you must... Read more

______________ We work so hard to get somewhere, to realize a dream, to arrive at some destination, that we often forget that though some satisfaction may be waiting at the end of our endurance and effort, there is great and irreplaceable aliveness in the steps along the way. Approaching Integrity We are always approaching integrity, never arriving at it. In working toward a thoroughness of character, we dream of arriving at a state of completeness where who we are and... Read more

With life offering so much depth and diversity, it’s easy to see the world through the color and feel of any one mood or experience. Under a cloud, the whole world seems gray. Up in the night, the whole world seems dark. But little by little, we have these glimpses that life is more than any one experience will reveal. It’s how we string these glimpses together that opens the window of circumstance. And then we begin to see how... Read more