Blog : Beautiful-Things
Lines of Light
| January 23, 2017 At sunset in Burlington the power lines are golden like the afterglow of sparklers when children twirl them in the air. A frayed ribbon of sunlight stretches out...
What We Did with the Honey
| January 16, 2017 The day we learned you were gone, Howie says he knocked, nothing answered.
Parabolic
| January 9, 2017 His first summer married, my father tended chickens. His job was to chase the birds out of the tin coop on hot days...
Morning (repeat)
| January 2, 2017 When my infant daughter wakes at two in the morning and her father cannot coax her back to sleep...
White (repeat)
| December 26, 2016 We no longer remember the sound of birdsong or the feel of dry pavement beneath our feet, but we walk to school anyway because school is the place we're meant to walk to on Tuesday mornings. Temperatures register -23 below zero...
Grace (repeat)
| December 19, 2016 "Thank you," I tell the manager, "for taking my order so late." The sizzle of the grill frames my words. "I appreciate it."
Holding (repeat)
| December 12, 2016 My sister and I live on either side of sixty. We've been mothers half our lives. Visiting her in Oregon, Ashland running a steady hundred degrees for days into weeks, we head to Lake of the Woods...
Turkey Soup (repeat)
| December 5, 2016 On Thanksgiving, after the turkey is carved and gutted - after we slice through half of the twenty-pound bird my mother insists on ordering...
Birthday Cards
| November 28, 2016 Once, I wrote a birthday poem for her forty-second. It described her love of wine, and how she was so very fine. Exceedingly satisfied at the neat rhyme and my infinite untapped potential, I awaited glowing praise...
An Absence of Yellow
| November 21, 2016 It's mid-August and already my grandfather's pumpkins boast a bright orange. His cucumbers have laced thin vines up the patio rail. The tomatoes flush cherry-red in waves. My grandparents bribe me with vegetables to come for a visit...
Claudia
| November 14, 2016 She was only 15 and already had lost a leg to bone cancer. Our high school girls' Sunday school class had pondered this for a few weeks...
In the Fold
| November 7, 2016 She wields a basket of clean linen with easy confidence: one, two moves across the chest to make a towel into thirds...
Only Now
| October 31, 2016 Only now, as you stand center of an aisle carpeted royal blue, where you and your older sisters, styled by mother in hand-sewn dresses to match her own, once trailed like ducks down the narrow river...
Bike Ride
| October 24, 2016 I don't remember if I wrapped my hands around my father when he let me ride on the back of his yellow Schwinn....
Red Birds
| October 17, 2016 I hand the plate of raw vegetables to Dad. He sets it on the shelf attached to the grill, settles his arm around me. Pointing to the tree above, he says, "See those red birds?"
Bare, Naked
| October 3, 2016 Rain falls, dimpling puddles. I kick off my clogs. My toenails shine like sparkling pumpkin peel. I slide my underwear and jeans down my legs...
On Guilt
| September 26, 2016 When I was a baby and woke up at night, my mother held me, her arms a boat on a gentle sea. Oh, the helpless power of the small, to be thus cupped in the world's warm hand...
Water
| September 19, 2016 Many days I set a thermos of jasmine tea beside me on my desk. Jasmine tea is mostly water, perfumed by flowers. My thermos is stainless steel with metallic green paint and says L.L. Bean on one side...
When Students Cry
| September 12, 2016 I know I shouldn't hug them, but I can't seem to stop, though I'm sure HR would advise it. I'd like to stop their crying as well, but that's even less tractable. Like the girl last fall who came to my 8:00 class wearing loose shirts and, after arriving late one day, told me she was pregnant.
Mars and a Reflection of Mars
| September 5, 2016 "There are two red planets tonight," I say. And you reply, "What a brave universe". And I feel brave. Two 30-lb packs hang near the tent we pitched just before it got dark enough to need headlamps. It's Night One of this backpacking trip...
Don Isidro
| August 29, 2016 In the lean years after WWII, soda bottles were our treasure, the two to five cent refund mine and my brother's only income for anything beyond the necessities our parents provided.
Brake Lights
| August 22, 2016 On Sundays my father's red brake lights flashed ahead of me as he held a newspaper out the window of his car. I took his hand-off and ran to the next house where the heavy editions of the Philadelphia Inquirer thudded onto the steps of porches...
Lightening Up
| August 1, 2016 My brother and I grab hold of dangling metal chains fastened to schoolyard swings in this expanse of crabgrass, red dirt, goalposts, and hard bleachers...
Candy Thief
| July 25, 2016 Rounding the corner with grocery basket in-hand, I spot my father staring at a display of candy. At a distance, I watch as he grabs candy bars off the shelf and slides them inside his coat, so absorbed in the act of stealing, he doesn't notice me approach. I tap him on the shoulder and he turns. Startled, he begins to empty his pockets.
Art Lesson
| July 18, 2016 They saved it for Fridays. Every teacher had the same projects. Fall: iron leaves between waxed paper. Winter: chalk snow scenes on black construction paper. Spring: draw daffodils. Except for Miss Malik...
Apparent Magnitude: Negative 28, Brighter Than the Sun
| July 11, 2016 We're in church and the minister is reading a story about Maria Mitchell, America's first female astronomer, when my son whispers, "When I grow up, if there's a planet left that nobody has been to, I'm going to be the first person to step on it."
Galaxies
| July 4, 2016 Say that this space on her forehead where you smooth tangled tresses to plant a kiss once, perhaps twice for good measure, smells like daisies, grassy and warm...
Tornado
| June 27, 2016 When I was a little girl, younger than you are now, I shared a bedroom with Aunt Catherine, who was still a baby. Grandpa was gone on business ...
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art lesson (1)
bare (1)
beautiful things (158)
bike ride (1)
birthday cards (1)
candy (1)
galaxies (1)
grace (2)
holding (2)
in the fold (1)
jack bedell (1)
julia shipley (1)
lightening up (1)
lines of light (1)
morning (1)
naked (1)
nature (2)
on guilt (1)
only now (1)
parabolic (1)
red birds (1)
relationships (1)
reliquary (1)
teaching (1)
turkey soup (2)
water (1)
white (2)
