For what it’s worth, once I left the convent, but I never left the Church. It’s true, I left Ireland in a hurry, too. You could say I broke the habit, or to quote my da’ “I pulled a rabbit out o’ my arse” and realized I put the cart before the horse and wasn’t…
I. What appears untidy and lacking in design is in fact intentional: quiet milkweed beside the conflagration of red fireweed; the brackish Schuylkill feeding stately oaks. John knew the author lays his borders, then steps back. General Washington, strolling the overgrown river trail, pursed his lips; what sort of father lets his seed run wild,…
As the lights go up, a man standing on a small platform facing stage right (an imaginary audience there) waves one more time at those people and turns and steps down toward us. He is dressed in an impeccably casual way: slacks and a sport coat, tie optional. Around his neck on a ribbon is…
Loss and ruin grind under our feet like spilled salt, bad luck sticking to our soles. And joy streaks across the sky, a star burning out. Who knows what will save us? A man yanks the hair of a woman he once covered with kisses. Each kiss was a blossom and he thought he was…
Every November 21, I take my mother to the cemetery to visit my father, a man who knew little of joy or the good life, and my mother kneels, says a prayer right there where the lip of his headstone begins, and I know her knees will hurt, but she stays, eyes closed, trying to…
Women think they know everything about love and they are wrong. Men think they know nothing about love and they are wrong, too. Books spoil you for love Love spoils you for food Food spoils Reading was the first thing worth leaving home for. I read the way you should never love or eat….
The heart of the builder the wild talent, the so-called genius of the artist is largely overrated. He has been building walls for 60 years now. Two things are important. Endurance (Strength is useful but overrated; leverage can accomplish at least as much as the imprecision of brute force), and material, the second thing, even…
My birthplace is incidental. Never forget your Mother Country. Our town was nowhere, nothing but dirt. Our village was known for its temples and ponds. The way my mother ran the house was backwards. You don’t taste fish like that here. I don’t remember what my father said. We memorized everything our father said. Chinese…
A remote white moon was howling down with its man-in-the-moon mouth, and she swung out across the double yellow line to pass an ass-dragging old van—whose driver turned out to be the hero of the story—and we came face-to-face with a Ford pickup. I had time to read the F-O-R-D, time to reflect that the…
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