[I offered this prayer and gave these brief comments this morning as an introduction to a school assembly where students debated the core issues of the 2012 Presidential campaign.]Dear Lord, during this season of negative TV ad buys, sniping bumper stickers, relentless media cycles, righteous indignation, overly abundant and overly heated cheap shots, AND during […]
Catawba Clay
Folks have beenDigging and working and firingClay here for hundreds of years.The story of how the clayCame to be though,How it arrived here is, of course,–A long story.–It is also a violent andEternally silencedBy time story.–(Violence is not always full ofSound and speed—The most violentthings—things that can push upAnd pull apartGeography are usually–Silent and slow.)–Before […]
Discussing JULIUS CAESAR in a Community of Learners
Last night was the third time I participated in a Great Books book club. Our group was a bit bigger this time around with two new members and a third member who rejoined the group after missing out on Sophist and the Henriad. This evening we discussed Julius Caesar on the roof deck of The […]
Larry
Larry was the caretaker,And he smoked Malboro Lights like they were necessary sustenance,and he said you’ns instead of y’all or you all or you.–These are things he was likely to say:You’ns go on up and hammer nails at the barn.OrYou’ns stop doing nothing and get back to it.–Holding it between his thumb and pointer finger,He […]
Through the Balustrade
(Back in the spring I wrote about an early memory I had of being in St. Mary’s’ Episcopal Church in Richmond, Va and having the rector give me communion through the balustrade (“Showing Grace and Coming to Communion”). In the post that follows, I have gone back to that experience and tried to represent it […]
The Hoarder’s Writing Shop and Table
Something from Ecclesiastes…some poems I haven’t finished (or rather am not ready to part with)… part of an email conversation about the role of technology in an English classroom…a paragraph I like from a letter I didn’t send several years ago…I have a Word document that serves as a sort of a giant virtual workshop […]