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PAUL CHRISTENSEN
THE MASTER BUILDER
I'm getting used to being shocked every day by a headline in the Washington Post, the New York Times, CNN, or any of the other major...
WAKING FROM THE DEAD
Winter died like an old man, palsied limbs struggling to hold a cup of warm milk to his flabby lips. A few gusts of cold wind couldn't...
TRUMP AND ETERNITY
Nature seems to slow down when the news reaches a fever pitch of obsession, as it does now. I listen with morbid curiosity at all the...
THE SPLITTING OF HUMAN NATURE
In D.H. Lawrence's novel, The Rainbow (1915), written when he was only thirty years old, his narrator observes Brangwen, the main...
CATCHING A MOUSE
Mice turds pepper the back of my kitchen counter. They look like fennel seeds dipped in ink. Slender, rather beautiful miniature...
IN PRAISE OF SPRING
As I got down from the car after shopping, my wife led me to the side yard. She pointed down into the tangle of winter grass and let me...
THE HEALTH CARE BILL
I'm sitting here in a cold house listening idly as CNN tries to maintain suspense while the House of Representatives debates the...
DEMOCRACY FOR THE MASSES
Unless you can elbow your way to the top of your field, whatever it may be, you are not credited with real knowledge. You're just a...
Memories of a Bad Marriage
Late winter feels like a bad marriage. You are not ready to admit that the thrill is gone, or that things are not quite ready to end for...
AN ODE TO SNOW
It wants to snow, it just can't. The sky is like an invalid trying to get out of bed. Oceans of heated air loiter overhead, vast as the...
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