The Hawks of Winter
I thought it was a hawk as first. Swiveling its beaked head almost completely around. Sitting high in the white pine, level with my second floor windows. Big but not enormous. Not an eagle. Not a condor! The bird … Continued
I thought it was a hawk as first. Swiveling its beaked head almost completely around. Sitting high in the white pine, level with my second floor windows. Big but not enormous. Not an eagle. Not a condor! The bird … Continued
It is cold today in Minnesota–minus 10 on the thermometer on the backyard deck. Two thin-tailed squirrels shiver as they cram their mouths with sunflower seeds. All kinds of birds flock–blue jays dip into the heated bird bath, cardinals alight … Continued
It is quiet now with the snow. Streets, sidewalks muffled. A dog barks. We are too far for church bells. In Charleston winters when I grew up, we often had windows open to the clack of palm fronds and … Continued
Carol Bly, one of Minnesota’s finest essayists, published an essay with this title in her collection, Letters from the Country. It’s probably my favorite, written when she lived in a small prairie community in the 1970s. She advised us, in … Continued
One of my favorite movie moments is all about “we’re having a heat wave”–In the Seven Year Itch, Marilyn (the quintessential Marilyn, one of the greatest of all time) stands over an exhaust grate. It’s New York, circa 1955–air pours … Continued
Yesterday in a belated Father’s Day celebration, my step-daughter (she the math teacher, she with the 9-month-old boy) took her dad and me to Target Field to watch the Twins. It was hot. The Twins were not. But we were … Continued
When Fran and I settled into this century-old house in Saint Paul, twenty-five years ago, there was nothing planted in the yard except grass. I mean no bush, no flower, no tree except the boulevard ash. Nothing to soften the … Continued
Green so intense it’s iridescent! Maybe it’s because there are no leaves on the trees yet to block the rainbow green of first shoots: tulips, lilies, violets, waterleaf. As I walk the alleys west of my house following the light, … Continued
We were sitting around in our pajamas, this attire requested by the three-year-old birthday boy. He loves pjs. In fact he wanted pink pjs, in his three-year-old glory, but his older brother whom I’m ready to call the “jock” protested … Continued