Let me preface this account by illustrating how sweet and joyous my mother is. She is the epitome of a ‘never met a stranger’ type. Here’s an example: She just shared with me a curious encounter she had with a young black boy in a Walgreen’s drugstore. As she was shopping around, she noticed this young wiry kid (under 15yrs old) loitering between the aisles killing time waiting on whomever he was with that happened to be at the pharmacy. Fairly quickly, he approached her and struck up immediate conversation ‘What are you shopping for? can i help you find anything..?’ Soon the conversation turned to his age and school and difficulties in getting into the high school he wanted … Read More
10 Years Ago…
In one of my youthful vain attempts at ‘finding myself’, I set out for Europe again. I was alone, I was on a certain kind of mission. Honestly, I needed a break from the standards I was already beginning to ridiculously impose on myself. I wanted to rebel against the person in my head. I decided to go to Italy and eat a lot of dairy products. Yes, this is comical to admit. There was more to the venture than this, but in a way it precipitated the entire trip. I hadn’t eaten any dairy in a couple years. I had been to Florence and most of the south already, so I started in Venice. I stayed at a nunnery. … Read More
Favorite Poem Submission : Monja Blanca
The wild White Nun, rarest and loveliest of all her kind, takes form in the green shade deep in the forest. Streams of filtered light are tapped, distilled, and lavishly expressed as petals. Her sweet hunger is displayed by the labellum, set for the bees in flight to land on. In her well, the viscin gleams; mesmeric nectar, sticky stuff of dreams. This orchid’s sexual commerce is confined to flowers of her own class, and nothing less. And yet for humans she sends so sublime a sensual signal that it melts the mind. The hunters brave a poisoned wilderness to capture just a few blooms at a time, and even they, least sensitive of men, will stand to look, and … Read More