While dancing on the line to a fresh spring breeze, it darkens the sun and sucks the breath from you again.

Funny how the things she cooked smelled so good and tasted even better, how stoves and people go away, but their value stays behind, rekindling and radiating warmth, like when I stoked the embers.

Even as decades roll by, and violence in our streets increases, do we have the wisdom and moral courage to address its root causes?

Primum non nocere!   No matter how you scrub the room and hide your face behind a mask, I know you hear the suction sound from deep...

Two young deer together roadside...the death of innocence.

No ocean's deep and wide enough to rinse your palette.

...and look into the eyes of God.

From Pulitzer Prize winning DELIGHTS and SHADOWS, "Mother," by Ted Kooser

Has yesterday gone, or is it dozing in the upstairs room, or combing the basement to find its place among my things.

The bully stomped in, loud-mouthed and tossing cherry bombs at the sky, their flash unmasking thunderheads...

I caught its movement out of the corner of my eye while overhauling an old poem in the middle of the night