I sip hot coffee watching July sunrise and shimmer in waves from the potholed black pavement between me and one man walking a peaked rooftop snapping photos of sun-worn shingles and rusted chimney flashing while another man sleeping under a straggly bush no one has trimmed since the casino arrived on West Broad when one …
Three sassy sixth grade girls Tightened their hijabs and stormed into the library At first Unhappily and unwillingly forced To spend time with me today Six days before the last day Of what has been an extraordinary school year. The sum total of their ages Two decades less the total of mine The problems we …
When people ask about your dating life after 50 (as if it's any of their fucking business) And you say You've sworn off apps (your hobbies do not include dating) You've already raised and buried a husband (marriage is a man-made construct) You love your life (Friday nights at home are your vibe) You're happily …
Would my life be better if I had learned to play chess instead of checkers? Then I could start out as a king Instead of waiting for my crown.
*originally written 7.2.20 Darby Dan training loop and Greenway trail, 5.52 Sometimes we learn things we have believed for decades to be untrue. Like the wiry, dry flowers lining highways in July are chicory, not cornflowers. (They are both blue) Or that friendships can grow and change and evolve through conflict into something new.
A new relationship is all fun and games until it evolves into some fun and a few games at which point it can only become a former relationship of no fun and all games.
originally written 9.2.20 *remote six a.m. and coffeecoffeecoffee to seven or eight post meridian Eyes glossy and bloodshot from the night before learning not how to slay aliens and other things But how to Zoom without crashing and burning and how do I know my eyes are glossy and bloodshot? Because Zoom tells me.
By the lake in our rented cottage is when we were happiest Our noses burned pink and freckled cheeks From racing down the beach In those sweltering sunny days of late July Made bearable by breezes That smelled of fish and fresh air That whipped our hair into knots And our Great Lake into white …
In that space of knowing Something needs to be done But not knowing What it is What to do Where to go How to say it What to feel I lace my sneakers And press the soles into soil softened By an overnight rainstorm In that space of knowing I should be writing But not …
Do not be the concrete pier anchored firmly in the mud Do not be the path ahead that falters in the flood (read more)
Watch this! Spirit commanded with a shout as sentient beings lumbered out of their hibernations where their skins had become pale and fair
Sometimes we need to take one step back from the chaos in the world (read more)
Our last class discussion was devoted to calming the fears of eleven year olds
The children you want to send to my classroom
in the fall
are not
the same children who left my classroom
in the winter.
Sunrise
is non-billable therapy for
loneliness
Words by Beth 