Poetry: There Is Nothing Ordinary
The view out my window Sitting in my recliner Is straight out of a Japanese painting Full moon setting through a barren Winter tree Behind the fog and the coastal…
Poetry: Enveloped by the Tides
Everything shifts with the push and pull of tides. Wood, stones, glass get sucked out, and the waves give back sticks of smooth-edged driftwood, pebbles to hold in our hands,…
Personal History: On Being Bicoastal
I fancy myself a bicoastal woman. The forging of this status began on a bitingly cold day in Lexington, Massachusetts in the winter of 1959 as I walked with childhood…
Personal History: My One and Only Callie
Along with three other sightless bundles of fur, the entity destined to spend 20 years of her life with me was born in the early morning hours of the first…
Poetry: The Thing Is
Each time I look out the window, I see a poem passing. —Gwendolyn Brooks The thing about poetry is this: Sometimes you get an idea, and you say here’s a…
Poetry: Vultures
Preparing my morning coffee, out the kitchen window I see how a needed rain has bathed our thirsty earth. Up on the hill, an unexpected sight— seven carrion-seeking birds perched…
Poetry: Plumeria
I have just settled in with a blanket, cat on my lap, book of poetry in my hand, when I hear the bells ring. Four Tibetan brass bells, bought at…
Poetry: Three Ekphrastic Poems
Kevin Patrick Sullivan has written these poems to pieces in the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art’s permanent collection. Let the Light Shine after a photograph by James Marx This…
Poetry: Bird-Voyeur
At the rookery, cormorants converse, a cacophony of baby-birds including egrets and herons calling for fish, more fish, more fish. They return yearly to nest over, under, and by each…
Poetry: A Teacher’s Nightmare
The other night I had a dream, strange and disturbing. I was in a class, literature maybe; the unseen teacher shared a text with us, told us to go home…