Poetry

Punishment On the dock in the little lake in Wisconsin where we went as kids   we discovered if we took a small  scrape off a wet bar of soap, rolled it  into a ball about the size of a BB and  dropped it in the water a little fish swimming under the dock quickly  […]

I once spotted Carl Sagan’s son: he’d just left the country home of mutual friends in Vermont whom I was coming to see; it was moonlit: he’d left his car to wander in a field. I was thrilled – I thought he was out looking at the stars, this grown kid of that famous heaven-watching […]

When we lived in Kent Gillian was a small girl: we had a visit from a distant professor friend who said to Jilly, “Would you like to hear a secret?” She climbed up into his lap, her face glowing with anticipation – who doesn’t love a shared secret? He whispered in her ear, “You are […]

Snow Spell Years ago, my kids and I emerged from our evening swim to discover an April snowstorm coming down in huge fat wet flakes. I stood under a lamppost to see the snow better; and found I wasn’t aware of the ground or anything around me. I underwent an eerie sensation; the flakes were […]

In early days a milk route man would help milk, take a route out, go to the milkhouse on the farm – put in a full day’s work: pitch hay, detassel corn, saw wood, spud potatoes. My dad hired Seventh Day Adventists who would work on Sunday without complaint. One reminisces: “As I think back, […]

Idle Thoughts on Endless Things I don’t know who wrote this; maybe I did? “An eternity precedes me that goes backwards  in time FOREVER. During all that time I didn’t know anything about anything nor miss my non-being. Now there’s a brief span of “me” then  time will go on forever, for time is limitless […]

Farmer poem (This is from a 1956 letter from my retired U of Michigan writing professor and small farm owner, Roy Cowden, who taught me so much of what I know about writing and living.) I shall never go through another  lambing season without living on the place. I drove back and forth twice a […]

I grew up on a farm in Turtle Township Often we played with kids downtown on the Beloit College campus. One day during hide-and-seek I wandered to a seldom traveled bluff beyond the observatory overlooking Rock River noticed the grass made a large low mound saw the mound had grassy mound feet, a head, a […]

Dynamite Poem Part 2   My friend Jack lived in his grandfather’s house on the edge of Beloit; the handsome house next door was in  heritage dispute and uninhabited. The local kids stripped  the house of anything useful for the war effort: lead in the  windows for instance. They all watched war movies. So Jack […]

When the spring thaws broke up the huge platters of ice, big and thick as barn floors and sent them down Turtle Creek, they were broken up by dynamite when they approached the railroad bridge over the Stateline Road at the edge of Turtle Township so their weight would not break the bridge. My friend […]

Once upon a time we had high school dances often called “Hops.” We had programs! We filled them out with who we’d be dancing with each round of music. Here’s one I’ve found from my high school: Grand March Merry Mix up Girl’s Choice Mutt & Jeff dance Going to Jerusalem Shoe Dance Boy’s Choice […]