Posted by in Uncategorized August August My father died and I went down to pick his figs Thinking to make a simple jam sweet enough to absorb grief Inside the humming tree – mid August and hot enough to make snakes mad I held a dancing communion with yellow-jackets, red wasps, midge flies, bumble-bees, hornets, cow-killers; working around the…Read more »
Posted by in Uncategorized I believe I can remember the first time my father was really angry with me. We were going to the store together. I sat in the front seat with him, on a long upholstered bench big enough for four. My habit was to slide over close enough to touch him. I might put my…Read more »
Posted by in Uncategorized Living Alone My grandmother Lilly Grew up just light enough to pass But not to matter; married at 13 Made her life a torch of love and raised 8 babies on nothing But what they could scratch and raise and kill Buried a husband in her 60s Come live with us! Her children chimed, but…Read more »
Posted by in Uncategorized I am a member of 6 diverse women’s groups. None of these groups started out explicitly as women’s groups; three are public boards. It’s just that often I find myself in a happy serious working coven of strong women, going about the restorative work of the commons, doing what needs to be done. Having…Read more »
Posted by in Uncategorized The Boy, The Brave Girls A pregnant woman in pink Comes to the water Behind her a tiny girl In a yellow leather bikini Follows, talking to her friends And holding the hand of a Timid boy, her brother He loves being with the girls, tries To be courageous around them But the girls pull…Read more »
Posted by in Uncategorized 1 Up in the mountains where I’m from There’s a bald that old and round And from its top you can see the world Folks call it Naked Ground, yeah, folks call it Naked Ground 2 My grandpa Holloway loved to hunt coon, and he run beautiful black and tan hounds. Sometimes he would collect…Read more »
Posted by in Uncategorized Welcome. Welcome to the Pokeberry Creek watershed of the Haw River valley of the upper Cape Fear Basin of the Atlantic Ocean. On my way to the Conference on Money and Meaning I was speaking in my head to Dorothy Parker and she said: “If you wanna know what God thinks about money just look…Read more »
Posted by in Kitchen Outside my window is a whole world of Piedmont Carolina woods. Tulip poplar, red maple, loblolly pine, sweet gum, water oak, eastern red cedar, persimmon, winged elm, sweet sassafras, black cherry . . . These are the vertical lines that measure my daily life, teach and inform me. They house scarlet tanagers and cuckoos and…Read more »
box turtle road 