Fallow Ground

It’s Saturday morning. I woke to find my fiancée on my couch in my living room. She’s in town for the weekend and stayed with a nearby friend last night. We made breakfast, watched a documentary about disappearing bees, and now I’m sitting in an empanada shop having coffee while she gets her hair done…

I received the following email this morning: Dear Elijah: Thank you for your email.  We appreciate hearing from you. Yes, from time to time, it appears that some of the sea turtles are stuck on the coral, however, they are not.  They like to use the coral to keep themselves underwater when they are resting. …

Yesterday we went to Sea World. While there, we visited Turtle Reef, and a very large turtle appeared to be caught beneath some of the coral in the tank. She was very still, but occasionally she would wave her flipper slowly, as if she was waving goodbye to the world. This morning, after a fitful…

If I’m writing this post at all, I’m writing it in the bus on the way to yet another road game, and you’re not reading it. My environment smells like whatever chemicals they use to clean these seats and, probably, vaguely of sweat and aerosol trainers adhesive. I’m tired, hungry, and not looking forward to…

A friend studying metaphor theory asked me about my experience of the use of metaphor in art. He wanted to know why I use metaphor when I write and what my thoughts were on why other artists in the great variety of artistic disciplines use metaphor in their various forms. We talked at length a…

This past weekend, in the midst of 80-degree January heat, I did some “false spring” cleaning. I went through the stuff I had tucked away in my closet, threw a lot of things away, and found some new homes for a bit of my more useful clutter. I delivered a paper bag full of audio…

Every year since 2007 I’ve participated in a ritual of reflection involving the music I’ve listened to throughout the previous year. Music is so emotionally resonant, and specific songs connect so tenaciously to specific moments in time. I’ve found that making a playlist of songs is a great way to both process and preserve a…

The world is full of only new light. Every instant every ray that is born from every source is brief and bright and breaks upon whatever surface it strikes bouncing until it has spent its energy and is no more. “Let there be light,” He said, and there was light, and it kept being, only…

Time flies. It mounts up on wings like eagles and soars into the sky, its talons tight on my shoulders, the steady THRUM-THRUM THRUM-THRUM of its wings angering the ever-present though most-often-quiet gravity to grasp at my body and try, futilely, to keep me on earth. Time carries me away. Swallowing my fear, I look…