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We are related. All life is, and all non-life; every particle of the universe. Your cotton fluff is spring’s silent snowfall. It carries through the wind, pieces of you, arms reaching out. So peaceful it is sacred. Far in the distance the fluff is pouring out against the sunlight, just falling and falling until,…
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I dreamed of the night sky. This is strange, because I don’t think it’s ever happened before. When I was little, about four or five, I had a nightmare that the sun disappeared. But, since then, my dreams have avoided the sky’s sunlit and starlit glare. Last night I dreamed of Arcturus, the brightest star…
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Every time I visit the meadow, something is different. The grass is cut, or they’ve trimmed the wild laurel bushes whose bark is smooth like tamarinds. A few winters ago the ivy-choked tree fell, its body colliding with trailing blackberry, buttercups, and clovers. I don’t even know what species it was. I didn’t teach myself to identify the…
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A spider walked on my bare arm today, and it didn’t bite me. First I felt the web pop, then the gentle tick of running. Surprised, I flicked it off. The spider fled far from its torn home, striped legs flickering. Long ago I taught myself not to fear spiders. Their webs hang between…
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I admit it. I ate leaves at recess. Okay, I chewed on them and spit them out afterward, but, to a third grader, that counted as eating. My best friend and I gathered browning leaves from the grass and took large, savage bites out of them, enjoying the rough, papery texture and the bitter crunch. They…
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I decided what I would do with my life on a fall afternoon thirteen years ago. I was slouched over the thin plastic desk of my third-grade classroom, my hand tight from grasping my pencil. Behind the single sheet of paper provided for the assignment I had stapled four more; there was just too…