What Is This?

What Is This?

Rain is falling in NW Arkansas, but that isn’t all…hail peppered my deck and rattled against the house a few minutes ago. Lightning, thunder–what is this? Isn’t the official start of winter less than a week away? Doesn’t Christmas wait just around the corner? Could it be that autumn is having a hissy fit at […]

September’s Song

September’s Song

The first day of a brand new month, September. This month closes out summer and ushers in fall. We’ll be thinking colored leaves and fall rains. If you were born in September,  your birthstone is the sapphire and your flower is the morning-glory. A soft, gentle rain falls again this morning. It looks like a […]

Canebreak ABC’s

Canebreak ABC’s

Canebreak ABC’s Red ants, black ants marching all together, through a canebreak by the river in the lovely summer weather. Many-colored butterflies drift or dream or flit among tall stalks for the very fun of it. A caterpillar wriggles and a cricket creaks a song, surrounded by the river cane, thick and green and long. Dragonflies a-dazzle with […]

Perils of Poe and Poetry

Perils of Poe and Poetry

Something weird is in the air. It’s in my nose and ears and hair. Last night, I read a lot of Poe, and now, I can’t talk right no mo’. The things I say come out in rhyme; not just once, but all the time. The sun is shining, bright as can be; the whole […]

The Captain at the Helm

The Captain at the Helm

Father’s Day! Congratulations and best wishes to all dads everywhere. To my son, first of all, a wonderful father to two awfully neat kids, to brothers and cousins and friends who are celebrating this day. And, although he isn’t here any more, a big thank you to my own dad, the captain at the helm […]

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders Fields

  In Flanders Fields by John McCrae, May, 1915 In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, […]