Assateague The waves curl in and lave the shore, drop their cargo of shells and polished glass, then withdraw, clawing back the sand. Sanderlings scatter, poke and pick, flee incoming waves, chase them back out, reverse, repeat. I stand on spongy sand, solid enough if a bit shaky, sea foam washing my feet. Somewhere to […]
poetry
In 2019, some science writer friends and I took a trip to Whidbey Island, just north of Seattle. I spent the drive there bargaining with my chronic illness, calculating how much I’d be able to do, and how much I’d have to miss. My need to survive grated against my need to actually live, as it […]
For as long as I’ve known her, my best friend has written a poem each day and then sent it out into the world. For more than a dozen years, she wrote a daily poem. On the day her teenage son ended his life, she stopped. I’d grown accustomed to opening Rosemerry’s poems in my […]
Damn, where did the summer go? I’m off this week to enjoy the last of it, and I hope you’ll take some time away from the internet too. But since you’re here, please enjoy this spoetry, courtesy of LWON’s spammers. It’s commenter appreciation day here at Last Word on Nothing. If you’ve ever wondered why […]
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 […]
I used to snicker at people who religiously read their daily horoscopes. Astrology is not science. Not even close. “No one has shown that astrology can be used to predict the future or describe what people are like based on their birth dates,” some exasperated person at NASA wrote in a Tumblr post debunking a […]
It’s summer, and I’ve been thinking of what poet Billy Collins called those, “forlorn chairs/though at one time it must have seemed/a good place to stop and do nothing for a while.” Even situated, as they usually are, to take in the view, it’s hard for those chairs to compete with the attention-grabbing distractions found […]
“The most distinct and beautiful statement of any truth must take at last the mathematical form.” —Henry David Thoreau April is Mathematics Awareness Month. April is also National Poetry Month. Coincidence? Yep, almost definitely. But it’s also an opportunity: I’d like to propose that we—you and I, at least until the end of this blog […]