October rain ebbs and flows and falls and falls and falls on the crooked pine trees and the roof, on the old swing set and the black driveway, on the cold, wet burn barrel and the American flag at the hundred year old house on Shady Lane where my parents live still. In the basement, … More The Disobedience of Rain
Two months shy of a century ago, it’s been raining in France, great sheets snapping like sodden flags across the farmer’s field – And my grandfather’s father, a child of German immigrants, sits down in soldier’s boots, and looking at the crops with a farmer’s eye, writes a few lines to his brother in Barnesville, … More Vire-en-Champagne, April 1919
Auld Jack Devine, as afternoon bows to the long shadows of a June evening, stands there, then, in the green and wet field, as they all are green and wet, appraising these Americans searching County Mayo for Jack Devine, clutching a damp ship’s manifest: Well. Aye. Ye found him. Auld Jack, eighty if a day, … More Irish Evening
Halfway North 