I remember playing with the little people, faeries and gnomes near the rose bushes on the side of my house and spending hours searching for four leaf clovers.



I remember being confused at nine years old when I returned home from a summer trip to Ohio and my dad explained to me that my mom went away for a while, suggesting that I should write her a letter.



I remember the soft skin of my grandma’s arm while she rested in her chair and I tickled her fluffy arm, then she… Continue

“Hello,” I managed to let out with a wheeze and a puff after running up the three flights of stairs to grab the damn phone.



“Honey, I want you to play 723 today, that was grandma’s number. Just play a dollar straight or whatever you can afford; it would have been her one hundredth birthday today. Grandma always hit big with this number and I know you are struggling, just think if you won, this would really help you.”



I agreed and grabbed a pen, inscribing 723 on my palm… Continue

Where are you now dear friend?
Is it dark and cool, comforting and warm?
You left on this brisk and stormy morning, your mind not wanting to go so soon.
The body that carried you for all of those years, with a beating heart as good as gold,
ceased while you slept.
And I, a part of you, dear friend.
And you, a part of me dear friend.

My jumbled room is garlanded with jeweled tone, hand-dyed, balls of yarn that cheer up lonely corners. Scraps of wool and cotton fabrics, multicolored tubes of watercolors and boxes of pastels, chalk and oil, litter my wooden, sturdy work table and wait for their time to become. Coveted conch shells found long ago and newly fallen small twigs and branches with personality decorate the mantle. And then there’s my clock. My clock without hands. It prefers not to remind me of the time that rapidly… Continue

Greeted by the sweetly
formed , frozen snow.
Twigs wide open
welcome me home.
A warm heart swayed tiny hands
to surprise a touched girl.
An ice-covered gift.
A sparkling statue of undivided love.
Finn did it again.

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire; the man lying on the cracked, frozen cement, wrapped in a torn blanket, sleeps.



Have yourself a merry little Christmas; many linger alone, sprinkled throughout the city, aging in timeless rockers as their fragile minds swirl with images of better days gone by.



Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow; the boys in the backyard dig a giant hole in the soft muddy earth and find a couple of sleepy snakes under the schist… Continue

“Is it non-fiction?” she asked, her eyes becoming watery as she caught an escaped tear with the sleeve of her blouse.
“Or fiction?” she blurted out as she gained her composure.
My mind wondered to the incident, that very moment, etched in the emulsion of my memory. The pain flooding my spine sent tingles throughout my body, returning to that moment of dread. And then I contemplated that it was an illusion. Just a story taken from a life that seems real.

The Beech snapped

snagged, shards of whitewashed and yellow wood,

Hushed in the aftermath

It’s solid, unbending trunk covered in elephant skin bark,

unwillingly branded, showoff deep, carved letters from needless knives

Sky rise branches, whistled steadily in the cutting wind

Lit from the reliable moon

The passerby fooled by the soldier of a tree

Its stealthy exterior hiding the disease that craved within its… Continue