Grave Flowers

We stood at my grandma Karen’s grave on Palm Sunday, the wind matting the grass and making all the fake grave flowers tremble. Dad brought a bundle of daffodils from Papa Larry’s garden, and as he tucked them in the granite vase, I said I hoped they wouldn’t blow away. But it’s early April and … Continue reading Grave Flowers

Look East

A Story of Christmas Yet To Come Race Point is the easternmost I’ve ever been— in fact, it’s just about as eastward as you can get in the States, at the fingertip of Massachusetts’s arm. It was a strange thing to stand with all North America behind me, to face the horizon of sea, to … Continue reading Look East

All Shall Be Well

A Story of Christmas Past My grandma Karen watched Hallmark Christmas movies the way some people use an Advent wall calendar. She counted down to Christmas that way, settling into the couch every evening for the newest feature with the same cookie-cutter plotline as the night before; and she wanted us to relish them too. … Continue reading All Shall Be Well

The Great Opposites

By Esther Hartman and sometimes, sometimes, the shadow is married to the lightin a grand ceremony of temple curtains torn in two,and the welding of spark to suffering, of hideous to holy,and light keeps replacing bulbs in all dark’s hiding placeshoping he’ll finally see himselfand the great rivals called death and lifefind each other ravaged … Continue reading The Great Opposites