Dorsey Templeton was a math teacher at my community college. He’d served in the 101st Airborne during the Korean War, gone to college under the GI Bill, and was an All State football player, on both sides of the ball. His heritage was Osage and Cherokee, and he never stopped teaching wherever he could about Native American history. He was a big man who bore himself in the military style.
I dreamt last night green arms of grass rose-up and overtook the city. They call this wilderness sprawl. I dreamt last night animals of all kinds two by two stole into the cities and marched the humans back to secret dens to rehabilitate them in the ways of Earth. They call this humanitarian aid. I dreamt last night the stars and planets took to heart the sight of pollution, stench,
When all the starlings, robins, jays Have given up and gone to nest, The crows refuse the calling night, Defer the final rest. Over the waiting conifers They improvise an arabesque, A final celebration to The dying fire in the West. Like fighter pilots when flight was new, Over the field they chase and dive, Rise like ash from an unseen fire, Circle like everything alive. The second ending, it’s
Midnight on a hot July night. My husband and I, sound asleep, woke up in a flash as 50 pounds of panicked Labrador jumped on my chest. Our dog, Sparky, had straddled me, of course! Mom! The one who feeds him, walks him and saves him from scary things. “Sparky! What . . ? “I didn’t finish the sentence. The odor overtook me, assaulting my eyes,
When I was in my twenties and living in New York City, I decided to impress my new boyfriend by serving Julia Child’s classic dish boeuf bourguignon in my apartment, which sat on the third floor of a dingy tenement walkup with a tiny and outdated kitchen. Some relevant facts: I was not a very experienced cook; my kitchen had very little counter space; the recipe has many, many ingredients
Poets dance in our dreams after the bars close their naked feet slapping out a rhythm to keep us from slipping into sleep. I’ll remember you as you were there then, a birthmark in my brain, sitting near naked, propped up at your dining room table, not like we found you, a turtle trapped on your back crashed up against those free weights, crushed underneath the ancient bench press thinking
