Every word of yours proves true. So shore up my sides against it, lash me like water into it, cast me, body and soul, upon it, until a wet wind parts the mists, and I find myself beneath its steady, searching light. “The Scriptures in their own sphere are like God in the universe – … Continue reading Lighthouse
A good writer is one who recognizes that there is always more to the story than they're capable of telling. The world is vast, and they will never come to the end of it. John wrote his gospel with this humbly in mind. He had undertaken the formidable task of writing about his Rabbi and … Continue reading All the Books in Eldredge Public Library
In response to Papa's reverie: "Just One More Time" Remember what Eliot wrote, that “What might have been and what has been Point to one end, which is always present” And so your “have-beens” of driftwood fires near the sea Are, dear Papa, my present. Might I remind you-- Time is like the Atlantic rolling … Continue reading Always Present
The pond shrinks this time of year, when at high noon, the sun brings all the water scraping away from the muddy banks and leaves them to crack under the sun. Papa Jay uses the drought season to find the holes where the pond leaks, and he has done so for many years. A leak … Continue reading But the Sea is Not Full
Whenever Papa Larry tells of the lavender farm he and Nanny visited up in Maine, I stop to listen, because I can almost smell the sweetness of flowers and sea. And then he'll reminisce to when they met the Lupine Lady herself--- Mrs. Barabara Cooney, who wrote the book Miss Rumphius. This past Christmas, Joel … Continue reading Acres of Lupines
I read the Cape Cod Times during breakfast Monday morning, and the story was about a man who got swallowed by a humpback whale on June 11, 2021. He was lobster diving off Herring Cove Beach at 8 A.M. when something like a freight train hammered him and everything went black. He felt himself surging … Continue reading Lord of the Seas
A True Story from Home The church sanctuary hummed, moms herding their kids in from nursery, guys in khakis talking deer hunting, and a blonde boy who got away, darting between folks’ legs with a Sunday school paper in hand. Anna stood at the front row, looking across the aisle to where her friends were … Continue reading Walking on Water
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
The first few things I remember about our stretch of Chatham seashore last summer are the waters chopping and clapping against the rocks, the place where the gray sky touched the horizon, and the points of light that blinked there after dark--- lighthouses across the bay. I also remember how the seashore smelled like dead … Continue reading Death on the Shoreline
This post is from last summer's blog series, The Cape Cod Letters, in which my grandpa Larry and I wrote to each other during my family’s trip East in June 2021. June 10 Papa, My lips and face are chapped, my hair stringy, and my legs sore from bracing myself against the railing of the … Continue reading Winds on the Atlantic
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