I remember the summer’s light dappled through the urban tree canopy of maple and birch and ginkgo, the summer sky a patchy blue over St. Louis, the old doors blue, red, green and white, each stoop, each old 19th century doorway, leading to another home, another series of lives and pasts and memories and futures. A mockingbird perched high up, surveying. A rabbit bounded into an overgrown lot where others’ memories once stood, now a jungle of castor bean plants and invasive Ch

Far down the road, the Ozark Mountains rise in hills and hollers deep. But here along the river the rocks are harder to see, rare highway rock cuts made back in the old days when highway roads were new and government work crews recently enlisted.

The full wolf moon rises slowly in the early evening’s eastern sky. Last light of day and the Ozarks are shades of rust and umber, red and lemon yellow, the sky that pale creamy blue of early winter. Too daylight yet for stars. Only the moon can be seen, also pale and creamy and massive, as it tugs on the tides and calls to the coyotes in the fields out beyond the high school. In the rise of the full moon, there is yet a sense of rotation, of our movement in the celestial sea

“I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, and all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by…”   And I remember a long ago and cold December evening, standing, ready for bed, barefoot, wearing one of my dad’s worn out white t-shirts as a makeshift nightgown, while a PBS personality of sorts — I’ve no idea who — began reading “Sea Fever” by John Masefield. The guy looked very appropriately poetic standing with the sea behind, while wearing a thick

The limestone cliffs on Highway 165 near Table Rock Mountain tower above the road and above the lake which flows, ribbon-like, far below. Brief afternoon sun highlights the bluff, etching ancient karst rock in warm relief. Cathedral walls in nature are easy enough to overlook on a busy schedule — just another rock cliff, just another bunch of trees, just the lake below. Even here, in the miracle of space and air and stone and life, the mind reduces the experience to the munda

A lemon sky gathers, clouds a distant tangerine smudge where the sun is setting on the far western horizon, somewhere over Oklahoma it seems, and the ribbon road is again endless, east versus west, time over and again. The forest ridges tumble away on all sides, faceless, nameless to the 80-mph-travelers on I-44, forest ridges that were not long ago crimson and rust-red, before then, dusky green and thick in the summer heat, now, hazel and gray, umber and dead.   These passin

Oaks are known for strength, but it takes more than just strength to weather the storms of this old world.

The orange streetlamps lit a covey of maple trees, trees whose leaves were making weird shivery noises in the early nighttime darkness. The sound was almost that of the ocean surf in the new dark of yet another Saturday, another week, another deep fall night, another onrushing winter, another year cold and soon dead. I stood on the high cement parking deck, modern American convention hotel juxtaposed with another old neighborhood. The orange light cast weird shadows over tras

I climb into my truck at nightfall, trusty Basset joining on the console. Key in ignition, watchful reverse into the alley. Bright crescent moon in the Southwest peeks through poplar branches. Truck tires on gravel, then edge-of-town asphalt. Yellow street lamps light the way, one block, two blocks... At the edge of light, a figure darts across the road. I blink. Human form, running motion. Except — the figure was gray, ragged portions of the body missing. And it is sprinting

Historically, we cannot argue with the stout Christian faith of our Scots-Irish forebears who settled these hills, nor question their reasons for leaving the Old Country.

That September was a hot one. Beyond the soft industrial hum, chorus of cicadas also answers.

The rain beats down hard outside, surprisingly cold, especially after so long a hot, dry summer. The warnings on my phone turn ominous:...

Lithography, stone, typography, the printing press, Gutenberg — this was all new and strange and I strangely loved it.

Wild rabbits and earthen mounds seem to haunt the untapped back regions of my mind.

We can walk through the Farmers Market and just see tents and tables and merchandise, but our Market folks are special, as are all earnest and intent artisans.

The sunset streaks with orange and purple and the wind is blowing from the Southeast, ragged and fitful and soft to the touch. The wind...

But this was April and I was nearing the end of the second grade. Kindergarten, first grade, second grade, the end of each school year was marked by a school program...

The wind picked up and the far northeast sky — far off toward a place called Chicago — was a flat cyan, the blue the color of the past.

The hard workers show respect, not disparagement. Mockery is the easy way out.

"Your house is like going to Grandma's in the '90s," my friend is saying, and I'm not sure if I should be amused or insulted. I tend to...