Lunch walk

Lunch walls, high sky, through winds

The sky uncertain, gray or blue

The open market is next to the church and cemetery 

Two people at work telling me they have never opened a pomegranate...little jewels

Saturday Poetry Event

Hey all, 

I will be offering a poetry how to mad libs sort of talk for all those people who tell me they long to write poetry but don't know how to start. My chapbook, The Night Ghost, will be available to purchase as well. Looking forward to seeing all the authors and events. Come join us!

Let's see if I can post these screen shots in the proper order...

Sunday Quote

Sometimes I think of Paris not as a city but as a home. 

- Anais Nin

Autumn yard

Pan Am and Mom

My mom thought an ideal job would be a travel agent. It was the early seventies, my parents doing a lot of business plus related travel, and what travel wasn't booked through his office, was booked through an agency in our town of Larchmont, in a storefront agency with flowers in the front and a cheerful awning over the wide windows. She had dear friends nearby originally from Texas, and Harry, the husband, worked in the Pan Am building in Manhattan. First thing you saw rising over Grand Central Station was the Pan Am building announcing you had arrived in glamorous New York City where anything was possible.  Back in Larchmont, my mom was trying to paint an image of a perfect life to settle her restless youngest daughter. Have a nice job where you could wear a lovely outfit, stroll about town at lunch, on vacations jet off someplace fun at a discount. She saw things in whole pictures and scenes like a story teller, urging me to write romances instead of my bleak fare, and of course, looking back, all of these things would have been perfect for her. A great storyteller with a deep interest in human nature and the details of daily life, what great romances she would have written!  Her interest in other people and traveling would have made her a terrific travel agent. Fortunately she had family, church, and volunteer interests that benefitted from her talents. One of her other ideas for me prompted a few little sweet but amateurish attempts at art on my part for greeting cards - here is one recently unearthed in an old firebox - 

I think dropping that idea for a career was smart on my end....still, I think in pictures as she did, having inherited many of her intangible gifts such as great pleasure found in small moments, and pulling a Scarlett O'Hara to think about it tomorrow when times get tough, and, of course, always noting that building that was Pan Am and feeling, momentarily, so glamorous to be in New York City.

The New Yorker

When I was a teenager it always seemed having a subscription to The New Yorker was such an adult thing to do.  

Even if after all these years/issues I mostly read the poetry and the cartoons ....

Betsy!

Found a box twenty plus years forgotten deep in the basement. Letters from my parents, postcards and long notes from old friends -some of whom, sadly, I am no longer in touch with, torn out articles and images from magazines, a smattering of old photos...I am only halfway through and am having the best time traveling back through the years. This morning's discovery? 

Thought these were tossed years ago

I remember every one which is kind of amazing considering I am going through some of these old notes and cards thinking - who was this person? -at their signature. Guess I didn't love them the way I loved Betsy! (All Betsy McCall lovers will understand this, I am sure).

All Soul's Day. For Anne and Grace.

There's no easy way to do this.
So do it right:
weep, laugh, watch, pray, love,
live, give thanks and praise;
comfort, mend, honor,
and remember.

- Thomas Lynch  

Dia De Los Muertos

Every year these stunning displays to celebrate Day of the Dead at my library created by local artists. This art resonates for so many reasons, exhilarates and comforts. 

Pennies and 11:11

Sunday Quote

We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.

-Thornton Wilder

Such Color!

The Japanese Maple at the side of the house never ceases to astonish me each October.

New poems

In the second issue of the journal that draws its name from the beautiful Hudson River, I am so pleased to have two new poems out in River, River. 

Early Autumn walk

This tree is the first being to greet you as you enter the grounds. I am fond of trees bearing their names.

The way its old limbs sprawl reminds me of the great southern oak we saw in South Carolina.

Sunday Quote

Everything is hard before it is easy. 

- Goethe

The chapbook arrived

And I am so pleased with it. Worth the wait.  If you are interested in getting your very own copy, go to the Finishing Line Press website or, eventually, Amazon, where it will soon also be available.

Sunday Quote

The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.

- W.B. Yeats 

Something Somewhere

Sunday Quote

Loved this sign on a wall in either Scotland or England (many stops on road trip, it blurs).

Short Story out

Happy to have my short story, Eva's Ocean, in the 2015 edition of The Westchester Review.

http://westchesterreview.com/authors.html