Poems, stories, and reflections
The Daily Post Prompt: “Worldly Encounters” An extraterrestrial asks you to recommend one book, movie, or song that explains what humans are all about. Easy answer: the movie Wings of Desire Damiel, an angel, perches on buildings that tower over Berlin. Seeing the world only in black and white, he listens to a stream of human […]
MorePeggy, my younger sister, wept bitterly on her first day of school. “Honey, don’t worry,” my mother reassured. “You’ll be home before you know it.” My sister cried louder. “You’ll love school. You’ll read and color.” “But you’re so old!” Peggy squalled, tears of shame on her face. Mom, her hair already turning fine silver by […]
MoreNever cross a Southern dowager. Period. Within hours of the delivery of my first wedding gift, Mom handed over an alphabetized recipe filing box replete with 3×5 index cards for documentation. “Just do it. Now. Not later.” That meant scrawling the name of the giver, the address, a clear description of the gift, and the […]
MoreThree decades ago, I would have spurned Mr. Nimoy’s comment about “perfect moments.” I was in thrall to the existential belief that perfect moments do not exist. As humans, we constantly rewrite history. Our lens changes as we witness birth, life, death. My father’s death last September brought me to a garden of perfect moments. […]
MoreI, snow angel,
Fell from grace,
Slick-tripped
On ice-sheeted
Green moss rock.
The wind froze.
My 94-year-old grandmother, Mama Hattie, died in January almost 20 years ago. She slipped away while astronauts stepped from the space shuttle, and the blizzard of the century blew through the East. The Pickens County Progress ran an obituary—read faithfully by neighbors in North Georgia. Her family and friends crowded in the Hinton Community United […]
MoreCatching a man couldn’t begin too early in the South. Not that mamas coached their babies in helpless sighs, arch glances, and pretty pouts. Those charms came naturally—at least for a few girls who budded early, their hot-pink and lime-green dresses giving the dusty playground a lush look. Their hair, parted precisely in the middle, rippled long […]
MoreApples abound in North Georgia. Ellijay, the heart (or capital) of apple country, holds a festival every autumn to celebrate the crisp, cool harvest. Herbert, the postmaster general of the nearby hamlet Talking Rock, knew every nook and cranny of the mountains, including local stashes of bootleg apple brandy.
MoreI furiously scribbled a document, losing sense to the tick of real life. Christmas was upon me. Nonetheless, I stepped out to Staples. On the way, I spotted a waif on a traffic island. A dirty backpack weighed down her right shoulder. She grasped a plastic cup for dimes and nickels. To eye contact or not to […]
MoreNelson Mandela inspired the baby boomer generation; many supported the anti-apartheid movement in the 1970s and 1980s. Millennials inspire me as well. I have taught and learned from them at several universities. This generation is the most progressive in terms of views about same-sex marriage, interracial relationships, and new media, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center […]
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