This is the blog for the Bentari Project.
Sunday, December 15, 2019
“Me? Me?” The trill of desperation. A last chance quavering. The most sorrow-filled interrogative in history. Whispered on the edge of death. Out of strength. Robbed of every shred of will to live or even to breathe, Sethe utters the useless pronouns of herself without even realizing she has spoken. The life-long ledger of sorrow—far too cruel a bu...
Read full postMonday, November 11, 2019
I realize that days like this stir up a great deal of patriotism. Any holiday that honors service men and women must, or it wouldn’t be worth waving flags and closing banks. Even though I’m a veteran in a family full of them, I believe in elevating peace. I favor peacemakers above those who declare, design and prosecute war. My 2nd-great-grandfathe...
Read full postSunday, September 29, 2019
Saddleback Mountain We leaned on our hiking sticks the distance was wide to the sea and quiet, the way a strong mountain top holds a moment. Green land rolled shadows and above, sky so blue you could see night behind it. What question could say all that was before us? A high pine wind lifted our sweat inland We had not planned to climb the whole wa...
Read full postTuesday, September 03, 2019
When Joanna Rose Was Little, cold blew where she lived. Covered the distance rattling dead corn droned down tin chimney pipes, thinned through window panes and shivered lamp shapes on the walls of her room. She rested a red tablet on her lap, wide lined and pulpy fat, “quiet,” she told the empty page. A freight pulled at the edge of town, rumbled c...
Read full postFriday, August 30, 2019
sparks too small to light the sky flicker up into those galaxies that know us the beach is cold but unselfish with the night the beach recalls us and our dogs crescent moon billows westward tugging hearts and wounded tides washing us tide and moon withdraw in shining streams carving eskers in a strand between the surf and home we memorize each fire...
Read full postThursday, August 29, 2019
What I will miss most are the bird songs They are wordless yet wiser than I will ever be They belong here long beyond when you and I are dust and yet— Ideals are gone so hastily, how easy to pay a man to drive a dozer, to make rows through forest miles, straight lines where they don’t belong, scarring paradise by the sawing, the cutting, and then t...
Read full postSunday, August 04, 2019
The day was a busy one. Family circumstances had me on the move. Arriving home, the last thing I needed was to find an Amazon truck parked in my space. I parked in front of the van, pinning it in and turned my car off to wait for the driver. Here he comes. “You can’t park here,” I explained. “We pay for these spots, they’re private,” I pointed to t...
Read full postMonday, May 27, 2019
Remember when we were little? Remember the strong-willed protestations, “You can’t make me!” and “It’s a free country!” We relied on early lessons about this place of ours, America. Even in our childish games, we passed on a tradition of personal freedom. Through time the childhood lesson underwent a role reversal. Now it is divisive and it’s not c...
Read full postSunday, April 21, 2019
A father’s gift to his motherless son was to visit the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. The boy could select a single book to protect. The choice could have killed the little man. It certainly cursed him. For he chose The Shadow of the Wind [1] and after reading it in one night, hard times got worse. Someone was destroying every word ever written by th...
Read full postSunday, April 21, 2019
Around the corner up ahead what hidden views await? Today the rain played its part and the sun approved the wind stood still and smiles grew. Like curtains parting the corner drew aside, where a narrow bed of soil appeared, where chance and a helping hand determined a bulb should sprout surrounded by vines bending with a purpose all their own to fr...
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