A prosing question This year’s winter closed out with a repeating sleet-freeze-thaw cycle that shocked the trees and shrubs. The last snowfall was so thick the branch of this ornamental tree peeled away from the snow’s weight. The day it happened, I bandaged it with burlap twine and used a fallen branch for…

I doubt they care —

A gardener’s lament — My May choreography is askew. A Dandelion chorus runs rampant through every lawn — It’s not a Violet’s sweet nature to reprimand. Sweet Grass hugs the sidewalk. Thyme has yet to creep. Yarrow lays low. The bunnies are uprising. …

Coming-of-Age can be a horror story — I became a fan of Nancy Farmer after I checked out her middle-grade book The Ear, The Eye, & the Arm when I worked at the library. This fable, set in modern Africa, could be magic realism. …

That barely contains my opulent bum —

Is not who I am —

A vacation with a side of grief — Computers have a feature that shares photo rolls of memories including their time and location. As long as the music is muted, I enjoy them. My daughter lives in California and during one of our monthly phone calls, she complained that her family hasn’t visited her since 2019. …

My mother saw beauty everywhere — My mother was a wild Fauvist at heart It started when she worked at the Baltimore Museum of Art where admission is still free. She met the Cone sisters who collected art from Henri Matisse. She even visited their home and saw those paintings on display before they were donated to the museum. Fauvism /ˈfoʊvɪzm̩/ is the style…

Each decade makes the bond stronger — My husband and I met in the Theater Arts department at college. He saw me in my Tweety Bird t-shirt sewing in the costume shop. I smiled at him and that was it. I saw him a year later and reintroduced myself and we’ve been together ever since. There have…