This is a picture of a rift in our world. It was taken June 21 at Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano, in a rip called Fissure 8. What a remarkably utilitarian name for a tear in the planet. I was captivated by images like these all summer, and I forgot about them when my attention turned to […]
This is an image of a deluge, an absolute inundation, a drainage basin filled to the brim, a coast whose cup runneth over, total saturation, a scene that would make Noah cringe. This is, as my friend pointed out, a f*@kload of water. This image shows how the land changed after Hurricane Florence was done, […]
The other day at brunch, as two of my friends and I were commiserating about things varied and universal, we agreed about the sluggish pace of our brains. What an injustice, I ventured, that our sluggishness is so out of sync with the blistering pace of this summer and of 2018. “Someone was telling me […]
The murders began, as they usually do, with the coleus. I had walked out my front door on that May morning to sit on my porch swing. But I saw immediately that something was wrong, very wrong. Soil was spattered everywhere. A telltale sign of a massacre, as I knew from experience. Dark-chocolate dirt, flecked […]
Curve of silver, Scythe becoming, Calends pass as you appear Bowing toward Venus. The evening star gleams just beyond your embrace, And you curtsy to it, reaching Like a dancer, arms outstretched and back bent, arching While Jupiter, behind, tries to catch you And in a few nights, will succeed. Twilight sky full of […]
The Arbor Day Foundation, which I have supported since I became a taxpayer at age 16, has a wonderful program called Tree City USA. To become a Tree City USA, all you have to do is have a tree board, have some kind of community tree ordinance, spend at least $2 per capita on forestry, […]
The hail was the first thing to wake me up. First a light patter, like pennies falling off the counter and onto the floor, but then it got worse. Thunk. It sounded like someone had thrown a rock at my window. For a second I thought it might shatter, spilling wind and rain into my […]
After several thousand years spent looking up and contemplating the nature of the cosmos, as well as what’s for dinner, we humans have amassed a lot of knowledge. We know the precise age of the Earth and the universe. We know how life sends copies of itself into the future. We know, with amazing accuracy, […]