My aunt married an Italian man, Bruno. Who would spin us around, us boys, at Christmas time in China Grove, North Carolina, on the rare occasions he came to be with us. Him and my aunt Okla. She was born in Oklahoma, as you might surmise. Okla was — to…

Then word came that the man she was with Was the one she loved in the darkness And though she tried to claim the light It was never good…

Dear swampy marshland lake, I am someone who doesn’t get to visit you too often. Or at least not nearly enough. I am someone who didn’t even know water could be that color of green, Or even that green could be that color of green And so I want to thank you for being…

This week! President Biden visited Ukraine and pledged U.S. support for the defense of Ukraine. China’s top diplomat Wang Yi visited the Kremlin and made not-so-veiled criticism of the United States. North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles into the sea east of the country Monday in its second test…

Silence,

(A painting by Casimir that is my longtime companion)

So we begin.

I did not die well in 1918 Shot five times on a field I could never pronounce Shot five times before Noon. I did not die well in 1988 I took my vitamins. I took My diet. An angel grabbed me At Bethesda Terrace. I did not die at all in 2008. I lived. I survived. But my brain hurts a lot. I shiver warm or cold. Now I’m just old. And I sit in my chair. I died a thousand times. I’m sitting here at the window.

Since the late 1980s, I’ve been a Unitarian Universalist. I find inspiration from various sources: Jewish msyticism, Buddhism, the stories of Muhammad, literature, movies, and so on. For 25 years…