I met you only once. In the summer before you passed, just before the century you shared with Canada. You gave me a dollar, green, like you. You fed me pönnukökur and confessed that Aunty Siggy had broken her hip and couldn’t come to see me. You had the healing power, restful, relaxing to my … Continue reading Green

Red is courage, like you, the symbol of martyrs and sacrifice. It is blood, the badge of the wound. Red is joy, the color of celebration and ceremony, of good fortune and prosperity. It is the color of Santa Claus. Red warns of danger. A red flag, the card of penalty, a demand to stop. … Continue reading Red

It is so easy to get drawn into the fight. Even though you have no stake. Before you know it, you are one of them. Just like them. Except not really. But now you have no choice but to go along. Perhaps you had no choice anyway, you are just a skinny white kid, looking … Continue reading Stonehead and the Skinny White Kid

Each decade that I age gives me an order of magnitude more wisdom. How odd it seems to me now. How foolish I was then, when I thought I knew it all. I see that same arrogance sometimes, in those younger. Sometimes I see curiosity, Sometimes recognition there is more to learn. I marvel how … Continue reading Decades

A blind man with two glass eyes that are too large for their sockets. They seem to pull the corners of his mouth into a permanent smirk. His name is Cletus, he tells me. "How do you like being a writer?" he asks. "It's great, really great,” I say. “It is a lot like having … Continue reading Glass Eyes