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PAUL CHRISTENSEN
ELECTION TERRORS
No one seems to know what to think or how to feel right now. The stress is building and the threats to this election are so poisonous, it...
THE OCTOBER TWILIGHT
Leaves are drifting down from the fiery maple trees across the street. They are perforating the dark hillside with little fists of...
THREE CHEERS FOR AUTUMN
I woke up this morning to a chill in the air. I closed the bedroom windows and shivered into my clothes, then hurried down to the kitchen...
The Grinding Gears of Time
Anyone who reads too much news these days, myself especially, falls into John Bunyan's Slough of Despond, that quagmire of doubt and...
A COMFORTING BREEZE
Very gradually, almost like an illusion, the heat waves that rolled over Vermont and scorched the roofs, and left us wilted like old...
THE AMERICAN MUSE
For years I told my writing classes that the reason South American poetry was so unpredictable line by line is because of the political...
ON SILENCE
I'm sitting at home listening to all the layers of silence that come to life when you are as idle as a houseplant. Or a sleeping cat....
THE RELUCTANT SUMMER
Winter didn't die easily here in Vermont. Its hand was still gripped around the doorknob, keeping us from leaving the house. We had to...
THIS UNKNOWABLE WORLD
The nausea I felt is coming back. I thought I had conquered it by taking long walks in the country, among the sloping hills and grassy...
THE BOOK OF ETERNITY
My daisies are not ready to bloom. They could have opened last week, which lured me out each day to note their progress toward. But the...
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