Longing to step away from the world, we bought a house in a rustic beach town where weatherworn picket fences were buried aslant by migrating sands and where people moved through their days in a brightly-illuminated present. Soon we did, too, and we felt some relief as we became similarly unworried by the past. But … Continue reading »
Tag Archives: prose
An Uneasy Equilibrium by Michele Seminara
When you are here I want you gone, and when you are gone I want you here – we only just hang together, you and I. The push-pull energy between us is an uneasy equilibrium, always ready to explode, or implode. Without you I can expand into the day, read outside in the late afternoon … Continue reading »
What Do You Know? by William Cass
After I visited my son in the convalescent wing, sang him his regular songs, rocked him, tucked him in, kissed him goodnight, I went out and sat in my car. I was relieved he’d come through his latest surgical procedure and was back in his room. After a few moments, it dawned on me: just … Continue reading »
Water, Water by Eric G Muller
Back in the fall of 1990, I marched my sixteen fourth graders down the hill to the Convalescent Center in Eugene, Oregon, armed with recorders, three music stands and pages of sheet music. Free of the classroom, the girls began to skip and hop happily along the road, while some of the boys punched and … Continue reading »
A Roof Over Her Head by Susan Breeden
Marcus Jackson is doing quite well for himself. His 1940s-era home was recently updated by a Harvard-educated architect. While it isn’t the largest house on the block, it’s the only one with Egyptian mosaic tile on the master bath ceiling, Brazilian Cherry hardwood floors throughout, and a subzero wine cooler stocked with Chateau Lafite Rothschild … Continue reading »
Painters / Painting / Photographers / Photography / Prose
A Swim – Cooraghy, Rathlin Island, Co. Antrim, Ireland. by Susan Hughes
I’m scared of the idea of the well in the cave down at Cooraghy Pier, the source of the “nicest water on Rathlin” I am told. When I get there it’s not so bad. The golden light hits the mossy moist rocks like a spotlight making the cave colourful and inviting. The well is … Continue reading »
Moon Child by Jason O’Rourke
During the winter it gets dark early in Belfast. You may grudgingly accept that this is the price you pay for those heady long summer nights, but even so, it’s December now, and June is a long way off. It’s difficult to conjure the memory of warmth and blue evening skies when it’s pitch black … Continue reading »
We meet after dark – Jeremy Nathan Marks
We meet after dark, your car beside mine in a gravel bed off of the river road. The stream is so quiet, far shallower than before when we came upon this place deep in the summer. I move into your front seat, the cassette deck is hissing. I hear the tin whine of old magnetic … Continue reading »
Art / Photography / Prose
The Silver Strand – Susan Hughes
Steady Donegal tunes from the early hours of the morning are in my head as I drive. It’s a spectacular journey through the rain and autumnal Donegal bleakness. The rivers are full and frothing the colour and texture of the top of a pint of Guinness. Rounding the bends along the cliffs, near Rathlin O’Beirne … Continue reading »
Faulkner – Hal Sirowitz
One of the first things I do when invited into a woman’s home is check out her bookcase. At one apartment I saw the collected works of William Faulkner. Her thought patterns reminded me of Faulkner – she’d talk with very few pauses. I’d watch the words slip away, knowing that near the end they … Continue reading »
