Memoirous

After a serious storm, the next day, the streets were carpeted with red buds, little pomegranate-looking seeds. It reminded me of a ladies necklace, of spilled coral beads, washed out over the roadway. On the back deck on the lounger left out, there was what looked like bird puke. At least that’s what flashed across my inert brain, then, I thought, no, it’s come off the trees. —Seeds are produced inside bean-like pods and can remain on the tree into winter.   Once you've seen a redbud tree flowering in early spring, you will not forget it. Redbuds cover their branches AND parts of their trunk with tiny pinkish-purple flowers. Redbud flowers emerge as early as February or March—sometimes beating daffodils. A member of the plant family Fabaceae, AKA the “Pea” or “Legume” family, the lavender pink pea-shaped flowers are what Redbuds are best known for. Flowering in the spring before the foliage emerges, barren branches explode with colorful blooms.— The strong winds raked thro...

My story, The Writer, is out in Two Thirds North, a journal out of the University of Stockholm, where I worked with a fine group of editors to make the piece stronger. As I work on the short story/hybrid collection I plan to put up at createspace/Amazon, I’ve expanded my vision to now 3 volumes! I feel like all the effort to learn the process etc shouldn’t be wasted. With that in mind my reaching out to folks for help with cover, interior formatting, figuring out the KDP dashboard, back cover blurbs can be serve several projects at once. As always, I’m continuing to write new material and hope in a few months to have further announcements of accepted work. Until then . . . Bike rides and deck sitting, springing forward.

April, new month, new vision I hate what’s happening in this country. It all seems so hopeless and my tiny efforts, futile. I see in my FB feed calls for protest, days of rage, memes. All that too seems remote, virtual, digital—whereas, I’m looking for something more analog: Present. What does it take to build a peace garden? I’d like one of those St. Francis statues of a bird resting on his stone finger. I want a whirly-gig that shatters the sun and sends fragments of facets splayed across the lawn. I want a place of solace. Let’s build it together.