Wonderful night photo by Stephen Locke, also the cover of my first novel (used with permission) When I was a little kid, the dark terrified me. At least, that's what I remember, but I think now I was just a night owl afraid of being alone, so I would pull myself up to standing in my crib and cry until someone came in. I didn't yet know how to befriend the dark I would come to love so much later on. When the dark encompassed the sky, I came alive, my little but fierce mind spi

Moxie smiling the day she arrived In the middle of the night I stepped out of bed, careful not to trip over the dog wedged against my side of the bed. Then I remembered: Moxie -- our very sweet, old, and somewhat weird border collie -- was dead When she moved in six years ago, Moxie acted as if we were always her forever home. We got her from dear friends, when we were considering a second dog to help our current one at the time -- the late, great Shay, our chocolate lab-Weim

Since the astonishing Coleman Barks died Feb. 23rd, I've been trying to write about this premier translator of Rumi, the ever-relevant 13th century Sufi mystic poet Coleman brought us. I especially want to tell the story of how I met Coleman when he was helping, in extraordinary fashion, my friend John Willison. But I stopped myself from writing this celebration of poets and poetry because of all the stuff happening in our world lately. ICE showed up in my town to disappear s

I got in my car anyway to go to the Mardi Gras parade in downtown Lawrence after I watched a video online of three ICE agents pushing a Lawrence man to the ground, handcuffing him, and taking him away. The air was warm for February, the sun was hidden behind a bank of clouds. The wind and the mood was up, but between and betwixt we were asking each other, "Did you hear?" Then holding hands or nodding or saying we were freaked out or expected it or nothing at all before dancin

The Walk for Peace with Aloka, borrowed from the Facebook page. Everyday we call and often text our son in Minnesota. While he lives in a St. Paul diverse neighborhood not under attack from ICE, he works at a food co-op in the Somali community in Minneapolis where fear runs justifiably high. That business, along with hundreds of others, is closed today in support of the general strike to protest ICE. Over the last few weeks, our son has been trained and issued a whistle and i