Category Archives: Uncategorized

An Eldest Daughter Plants Seeds

March 11, 2024 My mom has been gone for sixteen months, and I’m beginning to remember more of who she was in her life’s “great before.” Before her mind failed. Memories of her long journey home, of dementia unto death, are blurry today. They’ve yielded to the farsighted focus of moments shared with her now-adultContinue reading “An Eldest Daughter Plants Seeds”

The Crowning Glory of Atwater’s Heirs

The Crowning Glory of Atwater’s Heirs We used to call it compassion. Empathy. Regard for the lived experiences of others—especially others who differ from us.             Now, the heirs to Lee Atwater have twisted compassion and made it into something ugly. Kindness, consideration, and curiosity about other people have become, in their political lexicon, somethingContinue reading “The Crowning Glory of Atwater’s Heirs”

The Gardener

In Honor of Dorothy Pitman Hughes Years ago, I was honored to meet a friendly, gracious woman at a book festival in Jacksonville. She inspired me to write something in her honor, which (like most of my poetic prose) I’ve kept tucked away. This piece is dedicated to the great intersectional feminist, Dorothy Pitman Hughes,Continue reading “The Gardener”

A Mother’s Plea

Readers: I submitted the following poem to JAXNEXT100, in celebration of Jacksonville’s bicentennial birthday. A winter version may be found on this blog. This is the summer version. A Mother’s Plea (Or, The Springfield statue speaks) You. Down there. Yes, You. Will you please help me off this perch, and bring my children with me?Continue reading “A Mother’s Plea”

The NRA’s evil endgame?

June 9, 2022 In our guts, it still feels like yesterday. On May 24, a gunman obliterated the lives of nineteen fourth graders and two adults at Robb Elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. He used an AR-15 he bought legally on his eighteenth birthday. As the nation waits to hear whether the Senate will approveContinue reading “The NRA’s evil endgame?”

A Mother’s Plea

Note to readers: the following is the winter version of this poem. What if the statue in Springfield Park could speak to us now? A Mother’s Plea Help me down from this pedestal, would you? And bring my children with me. Toss away this old book and let me trade my granite perch for aContinue reading “A Mother’s Plea”

Reading in Black and White

            As an author, I hesitate to share why I wrote my novel, Seen.             As my longtime writing mentor and friend, John Boles, has taught me, “It doesn’t matter what you intend; what matters is what people get from the page.” His workshops have helped me get my pages much closer to what IContinue reading “Reading in Black and White”

Of Ax Handles and Olive Branches

In Springfield Park in Jacksonville, there is a statue. Known as a “Monument to the Women of the Confederacy,” it depicts a white woman and her two children. Like many confederate memorials erected in the post-Reconstruction era, like many schools named for confederate generals in the Jim Crow era, sculptor Allen G. Newman’s Springfield remnantContinue reading “Of Ax Handles and Olive Branches”