Were we following the bear? Had we stepped into a wake of fear that trailed her as she maneuvered quickly away from the house and into the woods? My dog and I crossed a threshold where each step felt like a dare, and each step promised the knowledge that fear brings.
--from Visitors, Gulf Stream Magazine (2020)
As I lean down on my hands and knees and begin crawling, I no longer feel the pelt of a rain that lashes the Orkney Islands, an archipelago of Scottish islands north of the mainland. I leave behind cloud-dim light for Neolithic darkness, and enter the five-thousand-year-old chambered tomb called Maeshowe. The seeped-in light of the narrow passageway—roughly 36 feet long with a vertical height of approximately three feet—allows my eyes to adjust slowly until I enter the central, stone-built chamber.
--from Thresholds: The (Spaces) Between, Southern Humanities Review (2022)
--from Thresholds: The (Spaces) Between, Southern Humanities Review (2022)
Weeds, saplings, nuts, leaves, twigs, branches, and once a storm-fallen tree return to my mossy oasis its natural surface and variation. In considering his garden, Thoreau claimed his daily work was “making the earth say beans instead of grass.” My work is to have the earth say moss instead of leaves. Encroachments trigger a cultivating reflex. The Zen master shakes the tree. I am Sisyphus with a leaf blower.
--from The Tao of Moss, Dead Mule School of Southern Literature (2020)
Outside the free-wheeling spirituality of Pentecostal pulpits, the odds of being bitten by a venomous snake is 1 in 37,500. Better are your odds at 1 in 36 of rolling snake eyes in a game of dice. Still, it goes without saying that no one wants to live in a house with a snake. To do so invites uneasy nights. A dangerous underneath lies in every direction. Intensities of attention multiple. And it is simply not natural.
--from Visitors, Gulf Stream Magazine (2020)