A Tidings of Magpies

by Bob Greene Editor's note: CNN Contributor Bob Greene is a best-selling author whose new book is "Late Edition: A Love Story." (CNN) -- Richard Nixon had been president for less than two days, I was 21 and visiting Washington for the first time, and I decided that I'd like to see what the United States Senate looked like when it was in session. I had come to Washington to watch the inauguration; this was in January 1969, and after the political turmoil of the year before, it seemed like it might be interesting to travel from the Midwest, where I was a college student, and witness the swearing-in. Now that was over; Nixon was at work in the White House, and before departing town I made a stop at the Capitol. I don't know what I was expecting when I stepped into the visitors' gallery of the Senate -- maybe something filled with drama, like in a movie. Maybe high-decibel, finger-wagging debate, with all 100 senators standing and asking for the floor. What I enc...

by Dana Gioia News will arrive from far away: the phone rings unexpectedly at night, and a voice you almost recognize will speak. Soft and familiar, it mentions names you haven't heard for years, names of another place, another time, that street by street restore the lost geography of childhood. Half asleep you listen in the dark gradually remembering where you are. You start to speak. Then silence. A dial tone. An intervening voice. Or nothing. The call is finished. Not even time to turn the lights on. Now just the ticking of the clock, the cold disorder of the bed.

From Here to There by Brad Leithauser There are those great winds on a tear Over the Great Plains, Bending the grasses all the way Down to the roots And the grasses revealing A gracefulness in the wind's fury You would not otherwise Have suspected there. And there's the wind off the sea Roiling the thin crowns of the great Douglas firs on the cragged Oregon coast, uprooting Choruses of outraged cries, As if the trees were unused To bending, that can weather Such storms for a century. And—somewhere between those places, Needing a break—we climb out stiff From our endless drive to stand, dwindled, On a ridge, holding hands, In what are foothills only because The neighboring mountains are So much taller, and there are the breezes, Contrarily pulled, awakening our faces.

by William Stafford South of the bridge on Seventeenth I found back of the willows one summer day a motorcycle with engine running as it lay on its side, ticking over slowly in the high grass. I was fifteen. I admired all that pulsing gleam, the shiny flanks, the demure headlights fringed where it lay; I led it gently to the road and stood with that companion, ready and friendly. I was fifteen. We could find the end of a road, meet the sky on out Seventeenth. I thought about hills, and patting the handle got back a confident opinion. On the bridge we indulged a forward feeling, a tremble. I was fifteen. Thinking, back farther in the grass I found the owner, just coming to, where he had flipped over the rail. He had blood on his hand, was pale— I helped him walk to his machine. He ran his hand over it, called me good man, roared away. I stood there, fifteen.

I've got the paint for HoneyHaired's room. Now I'm just waiting to finish my cuppa coffee and let the caffeine kick in before I begin. She said one night at dinner that she wanted to paint one wall of her bedroom bright red. We said,"Oh, that sounds fabulously fun. Let's do it." And we did. Now it's time for the rest of the room and I come to find out she hadn't thought about those walls. Mama probably should have been the more far-sighted one in the group. So HoneyHaired took some kind of paint-personality test online--always very perceptive and how I've come to learn that my "Hood" name is Ray-Ray--and it marks her as Exotic Traveler with pictures out of Scheherazade. Now I have a bag full of Yellow Haze, Orange Sunset, and Terrapin Green. We shall see...and, after all, it's only paint. (please note: above photo does in any way even remotely look like HoneyHaired's room, except they both have a bed. Hers is unmade and has a ca...

I'll be spending today in another hospital's waiting area while my mother has surgery. I've got books packed to take with me, comfy clothes to wear, a bottle of water, and a plan for lunch, but think I might want to take a pair of dancing shoes just in case...

by Helen Conkling Some boys captured garter snakes to bring to the country schoolroom of forty-six children. "Can we keep them?" I was the teacher. I said yes. The snakes had arrived in cages but during the day they came sliding, through wire mesh, to coil on the cool floor, gaze and then sleep. Children stepped around. I stepped over and around. Those who wished to draw pictures of snakes could come close and observe snake mouths, snake eyes, tails and scale- patterns, curves of the bodies. Pressing hard with their crayons, they made bright black, green, brown, stripes of pale yellow. This was their work. They did no other work that day. And they signed their pictures before showing them: Estella, David, Miguel, Douglas, Linda, Dennis, Mateo, Lee Ann. Then Raul refilled the snakes' water bowls and I opened all the windows so they could sense the rain and it was time to go home. During the night the janitor came. He wrote on the chalkboard, "Miss, Get rid of them sn...

by William Archila This is how he always wanted to remember himself: leaning against the green Impala, something brown and juicy, like Willie Bobo blowing out of the speakers, sweat steaming down the eyebrows, his buddies hanging out like lions in the heat, spread out over the hood, watching the sun melt the asphalt, the boulevard glowing with a line of low riders, puffing, bouncing all the way down to the bald, yellow mountains, where the outline of smog thickens and the rickety houses wait for a can full of rain. He would hook the bottle opener to the neck, pop the cap off—a geyser of foam—a shot for the lady tattooed on his back, his throat ready for the long, cool rush of a false god.

by Jo McDougall Growing up in a small town, we didn't notice the background figures of our lives, gray men, gnarled women, dropping from us silently like straightpins to a dressmaker's floor. The old did not die but simply vanished like discs of snow on our tongues. We knew nothing then of nothingness or pain or loss— our days filled with open fields, football, turtles and cows. One day we noticed Death has a musty breath, that some we loved died dreadfully, that dying sometimes takes time. Now, standing in a supermarket line or easing out of a parking lot, we realize we've become the hazy backgrounds of younger lives. How long has it been, we ask no one in particular, since we've seen a turtle or a cow?

by Martin Steingesser ... awoke to rain around 2:30 this morning thinking of you, because I'd said only a few days before, this is what I wanted, to lie with you in the dark listening how rain sounds in the tree beside my window, on the sill, against the glass, damp cool air on my face. I am loving fresh smells, light flashes in the black window, love how you are here when you're not, knowing we will lie close, nothing between us; and maybe it will be still, as now, the longing that carries us into each other's arms asleep, neither speaking least it all too soon turn to morning, which it does. Rain softens, low thunder, a car sloshes past.

by Laurie Zimmerman Here I am in the yard standing at the edge of the garden— this used to be yarrow tangling the stalks of black-eyed Susan and the purple fizzed Joe-Pye weed, and this, pink-cupped mallow, over there a profusion of wild geranium I would pull to relocate all summer. Here I am before the shrubbery of ragged forsythia, roots crusted into a muck of fall leaves, rake loose in my hand— this used to be grass under my feet and this, a marigold bed, over there a yellow dog, two white chairs turned toward the road.

by Kate Barnes A summer night. The moon's face, almost full now, comes and goes through clouds. I can't see any stars, but a late firefly still flicks his green lamp on and off by the fence. In this light that is more illusion than light, I think of things I can't make out: milkweed opening its millions of flowerets, their heavy heads smelling like dark honey in the night's darkness; day lilies crowding the ditch, their blossoms closed tight; birds asleep with their small legs locked on twigs; deer stealing into the uncut hay; and the young bay mare kneeling down in the pasture, composing herself to rest, as rounded and strong as a meant prayer. please note: art by Marcia Wegman

by Jane Hirshfield Day after quiet day passes. I speak to no one besides the dog. To her, I murmur much I would not otherwise say. We make plans then break them on a moment's whim. She agrees; though sometimes bringing to my attention a small blue ball. Passing the fig tree I see it is suddenly huge with green fruit, which may ripen or not. Near the gate, I stop to watch the sugar ants climb the top bar and cross at the latch, as they have now in summer for years. In this way I study my life. It is, I think today, like a dusty glass vase. A little water, a few flowers would be good, I think; but do nothing. Love is far away. Incomprehensible sunlight falls on my hand. please note: art by Rachael Malloch

by Mary Oliver What is so utterly invisible as tomorrow? Not love, not the wind, not the inside of stone. Not anything. And yet, how often I'm fooled- I'm wading along in the sunlight- and I'm sure I can see the fields and the ponds shining days ahead- I can see the light spilling like a shower of meteors into next week's trees, and I plan to be there soon- and, so far, I am just that lucky, my legs splashing over the edge of darkness, my heart on fire. I don't know where such certainty comes from- the brave flesh or the theater of the mind- but if I had to guess I would say that only what the soul is supposed to be could send us forth with such cheer as even the leaf must wear as it unfurls its fragrant body, and shines against the hard possibility of stoppage- which, day after day, before such brisk, corpuscular belief, shudders, and gives way. please note: photo by eyewonder.spaces.live.com/

Seriously... Death Panels. Pulling-The-Plug-On-Grandma Clauses. An enemies list. Home health care nurses coming to take away poor families' babies. Seriously? Is there ANYONE out there who really believes this? Ding-Dong... You know, back in the day, decisions whether or not to place a patient on dialysis went through a committee. And, more recently, decisions whether or not a patient met the criteria to receive a heart transplant went through a committee. The decision of whether or not a brain dead patient meets criteria to be an organ donor goes though a stringent algorithm and a committee. And for that matter, the brain death exam itself must be carried out by two different physicians from two separate services. A committee of two, although there are many, many others in the room. Committees are all over the damn place, and they make life and death decisions day and night. In a teaching hospital doctors travel in packs. For those of us actuall...

Ex-boyfriends in Heaven by Gwen Hart Ex-boyfriends never go to hell, no matter how many times you suggest it. No, they ascend straight to heaven, where they speak French, wear matching socks, and always, always arrive on time, with a full tank of gas and a bottle of wine. They never curse your cat or your mother, never call you up drunk doing Arnold Schwarzenegger impressions, never say Hey Rita if your name is Tammy, never say Hey Tammy if your name is Joan. They're better trained than dogs and they smell better, too, better than Twinkies or camellias, better than anything on earth. Once in a while, they take a holiday, drive their Porsches down through the clouds in one long line and ring the doorbell in your dreams, offering tender apologies, tender chicken cutlets, tender love. But before you take one sack of groceries, before your lips graze a clean-shaven jaw, before you let one polished Oxford loafer through your door, remember that as soon as they cross the threshold, the t...

by Craig Arnold Who gives his heart away too easily must have a heart under his heart. —James Richardson The heart under your heart is not the one you share so readily so full of pleasantry & tenderness it is a single blackberry at the heart of a bramble or else some larger fruit heavy the size of a fist it is full of things you have never shared with me broken engagements bruises & baking dishes the scars on top of scars of sixteen thousand pinpricks the melody you want so much to carry & always fear black fear or so I imagine you have never shown me & how could I expect you to I also have a heart beneath my heart perhaps you have seen or guessed it is a beach at night where the waves lap & the wind hisses over a bank of thin translucent orange & yellow jingle shells on the far side of the harbor ...

Ard na Mara Fred Marchant Catherine and John said it meant beside the sea. I thought it meant above, because the house was above a pasture swooping down to the tide, a thirty-foot drop. You'd step through layers of grass and manure-smell to the red, leathery weed splashed across the rocks, and then looking up, you'd feel dwarfed by the one wall left standing— a fragment of Sweeney's castle—just a stone wing-blade, but you got the idea: fortress, and the fear of raids. Later when I first read the opening of the Agamemnon, I thought the Greek signal fires must have been lit on points like this, the war won but not over, the flames a signal to begin learning the next thing to dread. The Dobbyns long ago had turned the hayloft into a room to let. There was a shred of linoleum, a cot with spring, and a low sink, the kind to bathe a baby in. Knives, forks, butane, and windows on three walls. A red door with a latch opened onto cement stairs...

As an older Boomer now with a bit more perspective under my belt and a better knowledge of history I can well imagine what our parents were thinking and feeling...I would never send my kids off to something like this. But our parents' generation--not as micro-managing as we are. The music festival at Woodstock would have been completely off the radar for those men and women who survived Normandy and Hiroshima, who fought back tyranny. For us, it made perfect sense. One big perfect, innocent valentine to life, and we'll not see it's like again.

by Charles Darling Avoid sharp things like corners, scissor points, words and blades and cheddar cheese. Eschew whatever's heavy, fast, and cumbersome: meteorites, rumbly truck and stinky bus, hockey players, falling vaults, and buffalo. Steer clear of headlines, bank advices, legal language, papal bulls, and grocery ads. Every morning, listen to baroque divertimenti, romantic operas, Hildegarde von Bingen hymns. Evenings, read some lines from Shakespeare's comedies; do a page of algebra; study shapes of clouds and alchemy; make fun of your husbands feet. Practice listening like a doe at the edge of the earth's deep woods, but learn to disregard most everything you hear (especially your father and father-in-law). Learn some Indian lullabies; speak with magic stones beneath your tongue. Finally, I wish, avoid all tears—except that the world and time will have their way and weep we must. Perhaps enough is said of grief and happiness to realize that any child of yours will liv...

Wasting away again in Neurodramaville... I think Health Care Reform should involve a "house band." You know, for the therapeutic milieu. Always thinking about what's best for patient care, don'tcha know...

by Barton Sutter The anxious agony of raising kids Drains the life from parents, who must grow From cradling to tug of war to slowly letting go And learn to live with worry till they're dead. When I fell in with you, I felt both joy and dread Because you came with two small girls in tow. I said, "I do." I'm glad I did, even though I sometimes feel I married them instead. It helps me to recall that gauzy, green meadow Where we saw a tawny fawn duck under The belly of its watchful, patient mother And deliver two hard headbutts to the doe, Doing what it took to get the milk to flow.

Spend the afternoon. You can't take it with you. -------Annie Dillard

WORK IS DONE and a most companionable moon followed me home from my shift at the human industrial plant where I repair bad brains and injured lives. We drove as partners through the curving streets of the neighborhood, yellow-flamed windows beckoning as the dust of the day loosened and lifted, landing on the half opened car window before blowing back into the world. We passed the last dog walks of the evening. I raise a hand in greeting to all knowing how quickly their arcs too could be felled. The moon, my constant, and I leave with him the remains of this day for illumination.

by Lawrence Raab Ralph Waldo Emerson, toward the end of his life, found the names of familiar objects escaping him. He wanted to say something about a window, or a table, or a book on a table. But the word wasn't there, although other words could still suggest the shape of what he meant. Then someone, his wife perhaps, would understand: "Yes, window! I'm sorry, is there a draft?" He'd nod. She'd rise. Once a friend dropped by to visit, shook out his umbrella in the hall, remarked upon the rain. Later the word umbrella vanished and became the thing that strangers take away. Paper, pen, table, book: was it possible for a man to think without them? To know that he was thinking? We remember that we forget, he'd written once, before he started to forget. Three times he was told that Longfellow had died. Without the past, the present lay around him like the sea. Or like a ship, becalmed, upon the sea. He smiled to think he was the captain then, gazing off into w...

Fireflies by Cecilia Woloch And these are my vices: impatience, bad temper, wine, the more than occasional cigarette, an almost unquenchable thirst to be kissed, a hunger that isn't hunger but something like fear, a staunching of dread and a taste for bitter gossip of those who've wronged me—for bitterness— and flirting with strangers and saying sweetheart to children whose names I don't even know and driving too fast and not being Buddhist enough to let insects live in my house or those cute little toylike mice whose soft grey bodies in sticky traps I carry, lifeless, out to the trash and that I sometimes prefer the company of a book to a human being, and humming and living inside my head and how as a girl I trailed a slow-hipped aunt at twilight across the lawn and learned to catch fireflies in my hands, to smear their sticky, still-pulsing flickering onto my fingers and earlobes like jewels. please note: photo by Lila Byrd

Telescope by Ted Kooser This is the pipe that pierces the dam that holds back the universe, that takes off some of the pressure, keeping the weight of the unknown from breaking through and washing us all down the valley. Because of this small tube, through which a cold light rushes from the bottom of time, the depth of the stars stays always constant and we are able to sleep, at least for now, beneath the straining wall of darkness. please note: photo by way of the Hubble Space Telescope

Ben by David Budbill You can see him in the village almost anytime. He's always on the street. At noon he ambles down to Jerry's in case a trucker who's stopped by for lunch might feel like buying him a sandwich. Don't misunderstand, Ben's not starving; he's there each noon because he's sociable, not because he's hungry. He is a friend to everyone except the haughty. There are at least half a dozen families in the village who make sure he always has enough to eat and there are places where he's welcome to come in and spend the night. Ben is a cynic in the Greek and philosophic sense, one who gives his life to simplicity seeking only the necessities so he can spend his days in the presence of his dreams. Ben is a vision of another way, the vessel in this place for ancient Christian mystic, Buddhist recluse, Taoist hermit. Chuang Tzu, The Abbot Moses, Meister Eckhart, Khamtul Rimpoche, Thomas Merton— all these and all the others live in Ben, because in...