Poetry

My sister gave violin lessonsHer studio was her home nearour dairy. When her own daughterhad a scheduled lesson she had toput on hat, coat, and boots, go outthe back door, come around andknock on the front door, and belet in for her lesson – just like allthe other students she had! 2026 Jacqueline Jackson

At a country crossroads pub far far from our fair city the long bar was marked with a pattern of grids. Patrons bet on squares. When all were claimed a chicken was released onto an overhead mesh. She picked her way around until the inevitable happened and a plop fell on the grid below. The […]

Sows produce huge litters The runt pig is often too weak to force its way amongst its jostling siblings to reach a tit Without milk, the runt perishes Sometimes though the runt is brought into the Big House and kept warm in a box behind grandma’s wood stove. Once, my sister Pat was sleeping in […]

Dear kids, the sabbatical is going okay except this late blizzard has us all snowed in. I feed the birds every day but the feeder is empty by noon. You can’t see the ground with the pile up of hungry juncos. There are five pheasants nearby –  I need to find their spot to leave […]

My sister Pat, maybe 7, woke early and decided to have an adventure She took some apples, set out  along the shore path, cut across a field, passed some cows, ate an apple, continued on until she had eaten all her apples, judged the long day was over, others would worry, and decided that  running […]

Dear Craig, your application received. We can find work you’ll certainly enjoy.Lester could use help, he starts at 4AMand seldom finishes till after 2. Ourmen use to deliver 300 quarts a day.Now up to 600 with every other daydelivery. Your schedule would bestrenuous, 4AM, 7 days a week. Itisn’t as bad as it sounds, but if […]

Great uncle George Trever was pastor of the Beloit Methodist Church maybe 1890. He was an explosive speaker, and the family story goes that he shot out his false teeth, which landed in the lap of a congregant, Uncle George calmly lisped to the woman, “would you be so kind as to pass the plate?” 

There has been a recent awful train wreck, here’s one that didn’t happen.  My great aunt, then, a young woman worked alone in a country radio  shack in Wisconsin. She listened in to the Morse code though against the rules, she discovered a train was coming on the wrong track and would collide with another […]

I was an early reader, so I could read the words when I stood by my grandma in church singing the hymns from the large Methodist hymnal shared between us. Yes, I could sing the words, but what did “pavilion in splendor and girded with praise” mean to a six-year-old? For that matter, what do […]

Having a baby is a genetic lottery. A couple of my kids have  inherited a gene from myself and one from their father resulting in a genetic disease. They caught it in  time but found others on the internet who hadn’t. How many folks in the  past have contacted strange maladies for no apparent reason. […]

If I could give to you one only gift To hold forever, in remembrance of me, It would be the peace that enters in the heart When love comes there to dwell, all silently. I’d wrap it in the silver of the moon. And tie it with the distant purple haze;  I’d seal it with […]