age
-
Ristra
These fresh peppers–fire-engine red and leather-supple,all youth and loudness–gather,jostling and laughing,enjoying the attention. They age,color mellowing to burgundy,skin stiffening. Relaxed now, they fall silent,awed by the heat building within,ready to release the firefor which they were bred. Young peppers flash;old… Continue reading
-
A Diner in Central PA
sepia photos on the wallsoldthe color of memory a brick house shadowed by tall treesa two-story business districta trolley car linked to overhead lines this could be my historymy history pinned to these wallslong enough ago nowto be a curiosityfor… Continue reading
-
Thinning Walls
How thin these walls have become,the walls between youth and age, between the conscious and the unconscious, between this world and the next, between my heart and yours, between our hearts and theirs. Permeable.Translucent. Through ever-thinning wallsI hear other voices.I… Continue reading
-
Change
"Change is a'comin',"says the old man,leaning forward in his rockeron his age-warped porch. He looks to the sky,listens to the modulation in bird song,feels on his stubbled facethe shifting direction of the wind,tastes, smells things out of my reach,not even… Continue reading
-
The Crone
"Witch! Beldame! Crone!"–these names they called her. She knew the truth:age had deserted and defiled her–hunched, shrunken, otiose to most. Yet the owl knew her wisdom,knew itself to be the bird of Minervaand she the Minerva of this small midwestern… Continue reading
-
Mountaintop
When you climb to the top of a mountainand stand breathless from exertion and awe,whose voice do you hear in the wind? In that fleeting momentwhen your spirit suspends itselfjust beyond the final outcropping of rock,just outside the present,are you… Continue reading
-
Compassion
This face and the story behind it:wrinkles deep as a museum exhibit,teeth yellow as urine…and few of them. But a grin so heartfelt,of corroded lips, cracked like dried yogurt. It is he who weeps for me. Perhaps only from the… Continue reading
-
Old at Heart
As I get older,please don't label me"young at heart." My goal:"old at heart"–much more valuable,way more interesting. Life lived,challenges met,lines on the face of the soul. George Bernard Shaw said,"Life should be lived in crescendo!" Always, always, always more. Text and… Continue reading