Fantastical Wolfdog

How to Keep a Human, my first and still most loved book, landed back on my desk with a thump this week. Inside, a handwritten note from the reader who wasn’t. She had tried but found it impossible to focus on what seemed a fantasy, and expressed a dislike for people’s speaking for animals. She […]

How Short It Is!

Two years ago, as I lay, virtually helpless, day after day, in the bed in the library, I would apologize every morning to Lord Tyee. He would come to me for the morning nuzzle and I would wonder if I would ever again be able to climb the stairs to our spacious, comfortable bedroom under […]

The Boiling Frog

I’m blogging about my current bout of illness over at The Law of Love. This is my first post.   “Suddenly I found myself in hot water. Boiling water!”   It seems like that when illness suddenly strikes you down.   I had returned from a once-in-a-lifetime trip Down Under in tiptop shape, nicely tanned […]

Grape Power

A bottle of wine winked at me; said, “You need me today. I am from California. I have an edge and I am on sale.” I choose to believe its slick green surface; cradled it “home” with a companion or two and stacked them all, willy-nilly, in the fridge. The realtor arrived. The friend came. […]

Condo

This lovely building, with its pool and hot-tub, gym and workshop, pub and crafts room, gardens and fountain, woods and salmon stream, Skytrain and City Hall, arts center, college, miles of shopping and doctors, police and politics, schools and churches, all a mere block away or even ensconced in the building, security and all—oh! How […]

Broom

My ancient apple tree, who likely refers to me as her latest human, somewhat less elderly than she, has a sense of humor: Wherever I have swept, she drops a small green bomb or shrugs off a bit of the moss infesting her trunk, which turns as gray as foot fungus the minute it hits […]

Is Anybody Using This Chair?

“Is anybody using this chair?” she asks, slim smooth hand already grasping the thing by the scruff of its neck. Of course I am using that chair at this table for two, crowded against a friendly wall. That chair supports both past and future— only the present sits empty. Tony, for one, is due, my […]

Ordinary Courage

Receiving somebody’s blog on the nature of direct action, I seem to hear the megaliths of destiny moving around to better positions. I’ve long said that ordinary courage requires witnessing and, for some, telling what was seen. As I contemplate the writing of Pale Criminal, the final book in The Falling Sky Trilogy, the mind keeps […]

the morning after WORD

The morning after a book event, the effort required to crank up a writer’s life is simply too great. I take refuge in the simple and mundane…and single-image poetry.   six a.m. At the hour of silver and gray, before tricky color seeps into the day, a crimson electric curve cradles the kettle, a smile […]