I come to a time every year when I realize, “It’s summer.” Bluegrass dries out while the buffalograss is thriving. Penstemons bloom in sequence, blue and yellow and red and purple...
Ever since I moved to this house 13 years ago, I envisioned a yard filled with native plants. I don’t mind the soft touch of bluegrass under my feet, but why do we need so much of it? I started...
and the popcorn and the chocolate, we meant to head home, truly we did. But around the corner continuous lightning arrested us, like War of the Worlds in Denver’s northeastern suburbs. The sky...
I guess the store name explains the spelling of “mosaic” and “elixir.” But does anybody care anymore that, if words were deeds, saying “I am nauseous” would immediately cause those within range to...
with green wheels, on the bus to Denver. I follow her to the bathroom, admire her sideways as I enter the marble stalls. Mentally rewrite the scene in which I ride down the driveway in Kansas City...
We sit behind a spiral staircase, in a room once a miner’s cabin, then a blacksmith’s shop. Nothing but stories now. The inn next door has been put up for sale: too much for one man to...
This time of year, I could spend all my time in the yard, pulling weeds from the buffalograss. I admit, my native meadow isn’t viable. It requires more work than the rest of the yard combined...
I began in a small space, a chocolatier fronting a spice shop. Everything packaged and behind glass, brought out one at a time for me, detailed, and rewrapped. I interrupted him to photograph the...
By mid-May, I make time to plant. I load up pots from the last 5 years and drop them off to be recycled, then head into the nursery to find more. I could spend $1,000 on plants in one afternoon, but...
“That’s a good idea,” the woman from GAP Adventures said, startling me. She pointed at the notebook I wrote in with her pen. “Thanks,” I said. “My pen has run out...
Woman must not depend upon the protection of man, but must be taught to protect herself. —Susan B. Anthony We started slow, we 20 women come to train. To raise our voices, 1 hour. To stop letting...
My friend’s son is learning to play the drums, and the drummers in the 4 bands were male. Tattooed. But it was the girls carrying sticks I noticed, skidding along the edges of the crowd...
The fire is dark but still creaks like an old floor. Now and then an ember drops. Outside the park still damp from the first rain this year on the plains. I pray for more. In the vegetable garden I...
The neighbor’s cat waits outside my back door at dusk, green eyes intent on the food bowl shaped like a cat. The world outside is wet from snowmelt. Downstairs, neither of us gets the fire...
All Friday the snow two feet deep on the deck beckoned me. After dark, I opened the garage door and cut the crust of snow. Thrusting it into the yard, I made my way north across the deck. Drought...
Just outside the Native American Trading Company, they caught my eye. Miniature daffodils, not 6 inches tall. Squeezed into a slit of ground between building and sidewalk. I’ve been editing all...
I have never found anything better than an alley to focus the mind. They call to me the way a remnant patch of suburban woods called when I was a child. What’s in there? What’s at the...
Have you ever entered a room of beauty and forgotten what to do with it? Have you ever encountered her and not wanted to explain? It was a narrow green room, a mirror to my left, benches to my right...
Last Thursday I thought I’d arrive at Monday’s desk, a clean page where I could fill in the week’s tasks. But unfinished chores still frown at me from the notebook, palimpsest of...
I rate the look of the bayou above the look of an overgrazed plain in winter, but can anything match a field of grass blooming in the wind? Can anything match a reddening Midwestern oak, several...
I can see downtown New Orleans across the lake. On Wednesday I’ll drive the causeway bridge, longest over water in the world, but now I’m on the boardwalk, while the approaching children...
Next to I-12 where trucks moan by, I peek at gabled trophy homes, willing the weak sunlight to come in and warm me. I can’t get warm, not even when I turn up the thermostat. Our handicapped...
After the highways raised above the swamp, after the ragged trees, after Lake Pontchartrain pulled away to our right, we’ve reached hotel strip land. Joy: My hair is curly in Louisiana. The...
One thing the shopkeeper told me: an outdoor cat survives one to four years in the mountains of Colorado. I believed him, having lost Rufus last year to the fox trotting through the park, or the pair...
The hallway ends at Dikeou. There among the art exhibits, with an audience of six, two poets fed off each other. And those who came to hear them. And those they admired. Two giant pink bunnies...