Death, death, death

by | Aug 30, 2011 | Poetry

For Brian Wid­dows, Jaime’s daugh­ter Kaya and Cered­wyn and Keith’s cousin There is an infin­ite sadness in cer­tain acts that cannot be escaped and tonight I grapple with the trifecta: A murder, a sui­cide, the death of a baby moments before it...

The trip to America…

by | Nov 12, 2010 | Personal, Travel

In Octo­ber, we went to the US on what Doug called the Tour de Harper. The timing was partly to make it to my cousin Dav­id’s wed­ding to the ever awe­some Rachel and partly to get in before Harper’s plane ticket actu­ally cost money. We ended up on nine planes in...

Untitled

by | Aug 15, 2010 | Poetry

My sister unknow­ingly let me in on a secret today. In our family, there are no dimin­ut­ive nick­names of affec­tion for grand­par­ents and great-grandparents, merely a rollcall of patronyms: Grandma Ber­sten, Grandma Levine, Grandma...

Catastrophe

by | Apr 6, 2010 | Poetry

I am not entirely certain how any of us make it through unscathed, what with spit­ting frying pans just out of reach and the tempta­tion of roundabouts revers­ing cars in driveways epi­dem­ics from exotic locales the drunk driver who slams into the rear of...

Recipe for joy

by | Dec 13, 2009 | Poetry

Here’s how I ima­gined it: Take one house, prefer­ably custom-built; add care­ful wrought-iron fix­tures and a wooden spiral stair, ceil­ing-high bookshelves, a garden filled with lav­ender and wisteria. Place in a rolling yard back­ing...