A ghostly bridge twixt heaven and me.

The tree stood alone -
the last clothed among her neighbors.
Her pale amber leaves captured
and reflected
the thin winter sun;
she stood in a private golden cloud,
shivering delicately,
leaves like shining scales flaking off
one by one.

Conversation with a sparrow...

He drops to the garden wall and skitters to my side, cocking an eye up at the freshly opened oatmeal.

Hey there...you're a bold one.

He hiccups a little inquiry.

Well, I guess I could find something. Give me a second.

He backs away, waiting just out of reach - respectfully, it seems.

There y'go.

He isn't greedy, breaking the dried blueberry apart into several bites, enjoying himself.

Good, huh?

He flits to the back of the chair opposite me, fruit sticking to his beak.

Ah, ya got a little somethin...

In two deft movements, he wipes his beak clean on the chair back.

Yeah, you got it. Nicely done.

He chirrups, ducks his tiny head in my direction, and takes wing.

The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind.

There once was a girl. She cut her own hair and wore what she pleased (and declined to wear what she didn't please). She wasn't very good with numbers or distance, or money or time. But she could weave worlds with her words. This girl worked very hard to have a few nice things: a well-lighted home, a stocked pantry, and of course, books. But what she dearly wished was to pay her bills with words, to feast on them every night, and to wake up to a fresh torrent of words every day. One day, the girl decided that was it! She'd had enough. She said, "That's it! I've had enough. I will live by my words. It may not be easy, and sometimes it may not be fun, but it is what I am and what I do, so I will be it and do it with every particle of myself." That day, the girl stepped one foot off the path - the path that was so heavily trod by so many many feet before her that it was smooth and broad and far too easy to follow - and she felt the grass between her toes. The sunshine seemed warmer and thicker, the air beside the path was less dusty, and her nose was no longer filled with the scents of sweat and tears and pain. That day the girl always remembered as the "Grass Between My Toes" day. That day was the end of something old and routine and tired and the beginning of something fresh and frightening and right.

One long cry from the heart of the artist...

Welcome to my blog! This is a terribly mundane first post, something akin to a college syllabus.

(I always wondered why college level English professors distributed the syllabus and then proceeded to read them out loud to their classes. Wasn't reading one of the requirements for taking that course?)

It is my hope that this course --- I mean blog, of course, will be a glimpse into my writing life and style. And that you, my reader, will come away with the impression that I am talented, intuitive, gracious without being a pushover, professional without being snobbish, reliable, hard-working, confident, and the perfect writer for your project. (I do not struggle with hubris.)

So, read on!