Poetry

When I was teaching at Kent State, we ate at a dorm: I thought it would improve family conversation, manners, and save me work. The kids preferred to talk with college students and when I saw one kid pick up a handful of mashed potatoes and smear it down her face I thought, “so much […]

Everyone sleeps but I am risen with the sun, and the grass wets with cold and freshness above my knees, softly then under the trees through the fence. Down now, to be seen is to be caught. Scramble up a cliffside scraping, stinging, and brambles hold me down. The trees at the top are quiet […]

My friend, Rodd Whelpley, has discovered various farm cams online but, he says the viewer can’t experience what you did growing up on the farm. “One can’t hear the whoosh of the milk as it leaves the udders, smell the cow patties that the animal drops, feel the hair on the backside of the cow, […]

In England “ert” is pronounced “art” so I lived in “Barkshire” I lay on my back on a sunny hill listening to a skylark.  Our eighth-grade teacher had us memorize Shelley’s Skylark poem, the first verse, not because she knew about “art” but because the last line contains a six syllable word, “unpremeditated,” remarkable by […]

Elspeth, 10: “Oh mother I love kissing kittens under the arms!” Elspeth, 10: “Aargh! I hate finishing a good book!” Jill, 17, peeling a potato: “Here is its stem. Potatoes always seem so self-sufficient. You don’t think of them as having stems.” Jill, 17: “I have to write a Canterbury tale tonight. How long did […]

Everyone sleeps but I am risen with the sun, and the grass wets with cold and freshness above my knees, softly then under the trees through the fence. Down now, to be seen is to be caught. Scramble up a cliffside scraping, stinging, and brambles hold me down. The trees at the top are quiet […]

It would’ve been nice to be asked. After all I was a bridesmaid at their wedding 60 years ago been family historian did a lot of tending to our folks in their waning years though I live much farther away did most of the cleaning of the family home went to their kids and grandkids […]

When a graduate student lived at my house in Springfield he brought along his alligator.  Every so often he would come home with a little package, the sort you get Chinese food in he would announce “feeding frenzy!” I would join him at the alligator’s tank and Andy would pour in the goldfish. Then what […]

It would’ve been nice to be asked. After all I was a bridesmaid at their wedding 60 years ago been family historian did a lot of tending to our folks in their waning years though I live much farther away did  most of the cleaning of the family home went to their kids and grandkids  […]

by Megan and Gillian (in their teens) How to care for children and keep them out of trouble 1. Supply them with books 2. Supply them with good books 3. Give them reading material 4. Let them read 5. Take them to the library 6. Find lots of good books 7. Teach them to read […]