I have always loved storms. Even when they cause flickers on the teevee and knock out the power. Recently we have all been both mesmerized and sorrowed by the storm that hit Camp Mystic and other sites along the Guadalupe River in Texas. Yesterday evening thunder rolled over Madison for what seemed like hours - it started as I lay down for a nap and was still growling when I woke up. There were tornado warniings. But that's what I love about storms. They promise a challenge, possible danger to provide against. Call the children home. Get the animals in. Close the windows and bar the doors. Read more about Storm Warnings

I vividly remember standing on the floor of the Showbox Theatre, as a Dead cover band belted out Dylan's Hard Rain is Gonna Fall. I was with my dear friend Caroline, now gone but forever in my memory as we stood together and shouted with the band, "It's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a HARD, it's a hard rain gonna fall." As if we were preparing ourselves for something.

And here we are:: Read more about Hard Rain

Recently, thanks to the Harris/Walz campaign in Madison, I met a new friend. Judy Washbush is ever so slightly younger than me, a beautiful spry woman in spite of her Parkinson's - "I may start to shake a little," she told me on our first meeting. "Ignore it. My family does." So she does and I do. Read more about Beatitudes

from A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare
A wood near Athens. A Fairy speaks. Read more about Over Hill, Over Dale

Ego Tripping

Nikki Giovanni

Someone asked me recently what I do when I feel afraid, and I told them that since I can't whistle, I hold my head up high and tell myself I am a priestess of the goddess. He sent me this poem by Nikki Giovanni who was born the same year as I. 1943 – (I relate in a Nordic/Celtic sort of way) Read more about History of the World

If there was ever a year to take heed, 2024 could be it:

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, Read more about Once Again

The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine-and-fifty swans.

The nineteenth autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.

Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.

a July like this? Or were we always waiting for disasters? Watching the sky for tornados, locusts, dust clouds or smoke? Hiding in the shadows from the heat? Can we, even in our imaginations, conjure up this lazy summer afternoon? Will our children have any idea that such a thing ever existed?

by Susan Hartley Swett Read more about Was there ever