Wear cotton masks where'er you go stay miles away from strangers Wash hands til they turn cracked and red Report scofflaws to rangers Raid grocers shelves at 6 am make shopping trips a caper Buy

The dogwood I planted last year has sprouted darts, rocks piled on the side, boastful testaments, to pick and shovel, digging bar, Yes I did it labor.   Just across from the dogwood, the trunk of a neighbor, now gray and

Photo used under a Creative Commons license from flickr user R. Miller.   I Want a Leader   I want a leader who walks in the wood, sits on a log without thinking he could Buy it

The dappled willow thrived where the waterlogged yellow cypress had withered.   “They’ll drink all the water you can give ‘em,” said the tree farmer, throwing the willow in my pickup.   Over two summers the shrub, un-pruned

It was the right time   For the longest hug.   Had my nephew fathomed the death of his own younger brother?   Did he know his powerful, but soothing words, the prior night’s eulogy, quoting my own father’s favorite poem needed to

In 2008, while working for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, I traveled to Mississippi, as a “released staff” to the AFL-CIO to cover the unions’ campaign for Ronnie

The late U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Sean Hamilton fly-fishing. Photo used under a Creative Commons license of flickr user USFWS. One of my favorite bike rides in

I have always been frightened by math.   8,473 km, 5,264.878 miles between Amazon rain forests, Greenland ice sheets.   150 acres Amazon forest lost every minute, 78 million acres lost every year.   11 billion tons of Greenland’s ice lost, 1 day.   Is someone not

Raspy cough, white bathrobe, fingers reaching for your ivory coffee mug, red lipstick on the rim, fingers, slender and strong like vice grips, nails stripped of polish, fingers, so many years before pressing a cold washcloth against my fevered forehead. fingers, stretching for chocolate, sneaking smokes. fingers, clasping