April 6 - In 6 days, a year ago, Bruce had the surgery that launched the cascade of tissue death and damage from radiation that killed him. This time a year ago, he was just beginning to be able to enjoy coffee again and was eating solid food. You migrated through three coffee routines in … Continue reading Coffee Pot Elegy
I don’t know if what I feel about you is grief or not. That is the sentence that was repeating in my mind for awhile as I worked to settle my thoughts on objects that relate to you. I had an idea for a table elegy the other week. I should have written it at … Continue reading Table Elegy
January Elegy #5 Preface I have not written much since he died. I should have forced my way through it, even if it sounded mechanical to me. Because I have now passed the rawest months I can’t recreate. Grief is, for me, I think, all about tiny events. And even Bruce’s dying was a series … Continue reading Blood Elegy
Mammalia means one who suckles - to feed a baby from a breast or teat. Londa Schiebinger writes that when mammalia was chosen, there were two other terms in contention - aura caviga, meaning hollow-eared, and pilosa, meaning hairy. But nursing one's baby was politicized, in the time of Linnaeus, for noble women who would … Continue reading
I came across the photograph this morning looking for something else. I took it at the beginning of our trip to Cuba two years ago now. It was the afternoon we arrived in Old Havana. In the photo, you are standing with your left side toward me. You are looking at me. You have your arms crossed, your ubiquitous hoody tied … Continue reading Photograph of ‘the Devil’ and an Old Woman in Cuba
Rooms - lacunae in the bamboo - are almost indiscernible, joined by narrow passageways between stalks percussing, tuned by grace. When we first found the standit was dusk,the mass of dense bamboo full of the movement and music of birds.Wall of soundWe thought we had come upon a house.Now just a mound - wild roses, … Continue reading Bamboo house
I started this project to record something - an event that is very small - in different ways. I had watched a bird find a piece of plastic (which I didn't know was there) in my garden, struggle to pull it loose, then fly away with it. And I thought over the best way to … Continue reading Memories are not in the Past
1. You said - my friendship with you is one of the joys of my adult life.or was it- my friendship with you has been one of the joys of my lifeor was it- our friendship is one of the joys of my adult life.We were in the kitchen cooking and talking. I was squatting … Continue reading Mortar & pestle
I started to fill a bowl with waterIn which to brine a duck for Easter The sound of water falling from the tapFalling into water in the bowlBrought to me the memory of waterFalling into water twenty years ago.
The light glowed in the surf in the dark, brightening and dimming and almost disappearing with the roll and recoil of water. It was too far in to get without committing to fight the waves which had just hit us broadside so high and so hard I reached out to you and clutched your arm … Continue reading Flashlight
Tiny Events 