Pine Needle
I found a strange pine needle once,
exploring the grove near Grandma’s home,
where my brother and I had often roamed.
January 13, 2026
Have Patience
Have patience when your noon is full,
As you peak o’er the evening fall,
When your breath quickens at the sound
Of empty valley tumbling down.
January 13, 2026
Giant Delights
Why must a field of cottontails so please,
Each stalk a thread in holy tapestry,
Whose many parts of one part in the breeze,
Much too fair for any monastery?
January 13, 2026
Two Birds by a Lake
The old Loon’s yodel, lonely flies
Across last season’s thawing lake;
Fee-bee, the Chickadee replies.
January 13, 2026
Elephantine
I don’t know much about elephants, except that they’re very large and very intelligent – intelligent enough to use about twenty-five different sounds for communication. But as little as I know, I thought I was certain about one thing: elephants are not capable of speech.
December 9, 2016
I Just Wanted to Help
It was shortly before one o’clock on Sunday afternoon. I was sipping a cold cup of coffee while reading the news on Facebook, a habit I find pleasurable despite the incessant reports of violence and corruption. The daily phantasmagoria reminds me that, while the world might be losing its way, at least my moral compass still points north. I’ve also become rather addicted to iced coffee.
August 15, 2016
My Robert is Dead!
A bus stop somewhere in Northern Utah. It’s nearly eight o’clock in the evening and the summer sun is just now realizing that it has overstayed its welcome. A woman, about fifty years old, sits on the bench, scratching her newly styled hair. It’s short, curly, and dyed the color of old blood. A man, who can’t be younger than seventy, shuffles breathlessly to the bench and lowers himself beside the woman. His knees pop audibly. In one arm, he cradles a small gift.
July 1, 2016
Mother
When my bedroom door is securely locked, I rush to my desk, push my MacBook Air aside, and lift the heavy Olympia onto the desktop. It was considered a “portable” typewriter in 1957, but hulking next to my laptop, it looks about as portable as my desk. That’s okay. I don’t need it to be portable; I just need it to work.
April 4, 2016
I Didn’t Ask for This
This can’t, like, really be happening to me. What have I done to deserve this? It’s been hard enough just trying to get through middle-school with nobody liking me, but at least there was always the hope that high school and college might help people forget how much they enjoyed looking down on me and calling me names. If they find out about this, about me, they’ll have an actual reason for hating my guts, and I’ll never be able to get away from it.
February 12, 2016