Forgive my absence

Dear Reader:

Sorry for my long absence, but I had a baby.
Caring for him will certainly cement my blogging tendencies to not blog.

Until I get ahold of this parenting/writing/blogging thing, I hope this photo will tide you over:

The End of Sitka

Only two days left of my time at Sitka.
My work here has been different than I expected, and I will be walking away with new stories I did not anticipate.
The land here is so beautiful it's both distracting and nourishing, which I think is the idea of a residency.
If it were all as simple as meeting your agenda, you might as well stay home.

So here's to Sitka and Cascade Head and the pygmy owl and the breaching whale and the bald eagles and the seals and sea lions and the herons on the river. This time has been unforgettable.

You Don't Miss Your Water

A Rag, A Bone, And A Hank Of Hair


I'm sitting alone with my father at the funeral parlor.
Viewing hours have just begun, but it's midday work
week, and for a few hours it'll be just me and him, the
first time I've laid eyes on him since the phone call
woke me up.

I'm doing what a son is supposed to do, or so I've
been told, but it's hard work, sitting with what used
to love and trouble you.

Of course, his body is a bright lie in its casket,
everything that has brought him here carefully
hidden or rearranged.

Is there something I want to tell him? Anything I
can forgive?

I can only sit and wait and listen to the gospel
music as it buzzes through the speakers. Jesus, Jesus,
Jesus. All his time, all his struggles that I still call life.

All his trials.


- Cornelius Eady

"I Do Not Sleep To Dream"

Mahmoud Darwish wrote:

Your feet knock against my heart like a rifle
as you shut the door.

Why don't you read this poem

This is the end of Other Deaths from Bite Every Sorrow


For twenty years we lost touch,
but I still remember the front hall of his house on Hillman Street,
its empty shell, the way our footsteps echoed on the bare boards,
the way his mother said, "One toy at a time,"
the high school dance when he asked me gently
why I was shaking.
Did he think about me, other deaths,
men angry at being pallbearers all this time,
while women got to carry life?
It's too late to ask him where he thinks the sky ends,
if he still believes in God. The night he died
I felt snakes moving up my back
and in the dream they made the sound of rainsticks.
It's too late to go back, to arrive at the kitchen door,
too late for him to say, "Come in and wash your hair in the sink,
if you want." As if by this familiar bending
I could bow to what love we had in common.


- Barbara Ras

One more reason I love William Stafford

He said, "I would give up every poem I've ever written for the next one, the one I haven't written."

Sitka

Hello dear reader (Brian: don't cook anything while you're reading this),

This is where I am:




I cannot imagine what good deed in a past life allowed for me to be writing here now.
I am grateful, so much gratitude that it's obscene. A little raunchy, really.

Here is a little poetry for you from The Death Notebooks:

"Out of the mournful sweetness of touching
comes love
like breakfast."