It's Still Life

I. Those are steep stairs to heaven with no lifts or levers in sight. II. To move between moments like an acorn free-falling to ground. III. And then wind and chill as winter arrived like an aching tooth. IV. An unremembered dream sent mad in dawn’s lingering drizzle. V. Sunlight slowed the storm in my…

MQ15: One for Paris There was an odd return, a twinge, as I stood in Gare de Nord station. Not that it‘s anything at all like Paddington or Union Station, and it wasn’t the tearful embrace of weekend lovers separating, or wives waving off their husbands, neither was it the speedy click and slap of…

Of Common Place I come from a common mind where the human hand creates “things”, we embrace them — and name them. Purple lilacs that aren’t lilacs, they’re buddleia. Red geraniums that aren’t — they’re pelargoniums. Marigolds that aren’t; they’re tagetes asteraceae, but a rose by any other name is never as bright as Mexican…

In the Beginning This small child, sits like a ripening apple with her Tinkerbell face and kumquat mouth, and one day she’ll be keen on sardines with onion and chilli ketchup, and she’ll watch the sunny sky unfold its darkness, but for now, she’s future’s child, and there’s nothing in her face that suggests intellect…

Somewhere Along the Snake River A few years ago, my sister and I were on a road trip through Idaho. She was driving, and we burned off miles reminiscing, mostly childhood stuff. And she said she remembered lots of things Mum and Dad said to her when she was a baby, long before she could…