screeching through the screen door there are squirrels in the sandbox i don’t know what to do there are squirrels in the sandbox don’t leave me out here alone it might eat me or worst give me fleas and bring its friends to eat up all my toys this is atrocious squirrels should know better…
Tag: Parenting
veneration, an adornment
these hands bring me mud pies with ant filling and are so sensitive he giggles a bell chiming laugh that feels my heart few have accomplished what he does so effortlessly of elders and matriarchs he commands entire rooms astounded my jaw drops at the magnitude of his appeal favorite son a nomenclature he wears…
flying squirrels and little drummer boys: why i salute natalie hawkins
my son plays the drums. he’s 5 years old but he’s been playing a backbeat since he was 2. at 20 months he assembled a makeshift set of pots pans steel lids buckets popcorn and coffee cans together to create a set and drum to michael jackson singing ‘you can’t win’ from the wiz. family…
i am an artist because my mother never told me to shut up
my mother never told me to shut up. i’m sure she wanted to and probably still does. on. a. daily. basis. but the truth is she never did tell me to shut up. not only did she not tell me to shut up when i talked she listened. and i knew she was listening because…
Legend of the Sky Giants: A Fable for Langston
as told to Langston… Long long ago in the moment between the void and the earth’s formation, a battle brewed among the stars. Every star wanted to be ‘the‘ star. It was whispered among the stars, that to be ‘the’ star meant power. Power to warm planets. Power to give life. Power to grow living…
Let’s Begin by Assuming…Everyone Loves Their Children as Much as You
…when Holmes, just last May, walked into the Bass Pro Shops store in Northfield and walked out with a glock handgun and 870 Winchester shotgun, no one thought much of it. We are sixteen and feeling every inch of our earned adolescent angst. Without blinking an eye we select the scariest film on the marque…Nightmare on…
love, indeed: a birthday poem for langston
he is small but in a very big way his feet the size of your average 7 year old never mind that he won’t be five for 2 more days he has taught me more about me than i could have learned in a classroom full of memoir biography and ancestral maps my head a…
My iLife: A Reflection on Missed Connection
I use to have a life but then I got an iPhone and Facebook account and my life became virtual. I’ve stopped talking on the phone practically altogether although in truth I was never really a telephone chatterer. It’s just easier to text or send an email and inboxing someone is damn near instant message….
biology is the least of what makes someone a man (586 words of gratitude: love prose)
i grew up surrounded by men, my family large: my mother born number 5 in a sibship of twelve and my father number 2 in a brotherhood of six. two men parented me, or at least attempted, one i called daddy, the other i introduce as dad. my grandfathers i idealized and adored. my brothers…
Invitation
i. mommy play with me, the edict yelled from backyards kitchen floors and single paned windows. ii. mommy play with me, a modest request, summons to frolic and for one moment remember again what it is like to be swept away in a hurricane of joy. iii. mommy come play with me often meets not nows followed by…
fearfree living 