Thoughts

I self-published a novella (a short novel) this summer. I will add a link below to the Amazon page where you can read the description, but the book--called Starfish Prime *--is meant to appeal to middle school-aged youth. There are aspects of the book about which I am proud, and other aspects I feel reveal my freshman status as an author. It is short--in print, it is only 123 pages--and not at all difficult to read. A swift reader could finish in one sitting if motivated. It took me some time to write it, but because of this and the thought I put into it, I grew to learn from the characters I invented. I saw them as flawed, but well-meaning individuals, and I saw, too, parts of myself and those closest to me in them. Specifically, I saw some of the character traits I dreamed of showing when I was a young man, as well as some of the more flawed traits I actually do possess.** One example of the former--examples of traits I wish I had possessed--took place in a flashback scene of the...

We all have regrets. One of my greatest regrets took place in the summer of 2004. I had started a master's degree program at my university in the fall of 2003. I performed passably that semester, but by the end of it, having graduated the spring before, I was burned out. I decided to put the degree program on hold and begin my training to become a teacher. I did so in the spring of that year, but wanted to do something unrelated to school during the summer. As a result, just before applications were due, I applied and was accepted to be a camp counselor at a camp just two hours away from where I lived. I arrived to meet the permanent staff and my fellow counselors and, not more than three or four days into the job--having worked on a drama, set up an archery target by standing on the shoulders of another guy, decided the name of my cabin group, and performing various other jobs--I told the activity coordinator that it wasn't for me. While this person had someone in mind in ca...

Some who defend evolution as a worldview explain morality with the notion that human survival depends on it. For example, a clan that is infighting over resources would either function inefficiently--putting itself at risk--or destroy itself completely as enemies exploit the clan's weakened state. This means that at some point, for human survival, those who decided to cooperate with each other, rather than fight with each other, survived by working together. While it seems reasonable that natural selection chose the more cooperative among humanity and allowed the more selfish and less cooperative to die--that is, while evolution accounts for the good in people--I don't see how it accounts for the evil in people. If nature selects those who are cooperative, then why do we retain an uncooperative, selfish nature, too? Is this evil just a vestige of our old selves, like wisdom teeth or our appendix? Organs like these have no purpose, but evil does: its purpose is to destroy the se...

It's not abnormal to see people walking in the morning on those days (growing fewer, by the way) when I run. Normally, my interactions with the people I see are what you might expect when two people pass on an otherwise empty path. Most often, we greet each other and move on. Such uneventful interaction is normal. On this day, however, something different happened, something that I will likely remember for some time. I was passing a young woman--perhaps nineteen or twenty--walking the opposite direction from me. Since she was looking down at her phone, I said nothing and kept running. However, when I reached about forty feet beyond where she then was, I heard a man from across the street begin to yell at this woman. Addressing her first by calling her out (I can't remember what he said here), I could not for certain make out what he said next, but I believe it was something like, "You are fat." Still running, even while he continued to yell, I looked to see her re...

When dreams fall from a clear sky, We cannot decide what form they take Governed by the spinning, tilted sphere That beats in each chest The undulating massage of sprinkled mist Can just as true be the gale-driven torrent; Whatever the form, Our arms, The ones we train in reverie to be strong, We choose to open wide, To accept that fate we cannot see, Or to tuck them shut Closed to all those meant to be embraced Though we thought it finished, With rain ceased, A specter soon appears, One we ourselves conjure as we taste the memory Of what our arms beheld that all-important day When we look below, We summon the old familiar ghost, That which springs from the now-watered earth, From the soil of a mind tilled in guilt The blooming poltergeist of shadowed past Haunting, ever haunting, Till we choose to stop the rain With a thought, nay, a faith, That was trained by— No, trained on—us When we look above, From there, where the rain began, Comes the spirit, T...

The engine won’t start again But that’s because I’m alone. To me, time stands still, Though I age In the sanctum of an inner rage That long ago turned dull Turned motors Like mine, but stronger Leaving black marks on an oil-slicked street That never could be slick enough to escape But, hey, despair ain’t heavy with the top down We make our own wind anyway Though the scene stay Often it’s in some other car That we fight a new battle in an old war Sometimes we blame the other for the loss Sometimes we ourselves incur the cost We alone condone, Turn ourselves into hardened stone And refuse to be the ones who pay When the engine does start, In our unconscious choice, Then wheels, spinning wheels, Kick up smoke To obscure a future that we don’t want to see And we pray Pray for our man-made mist to go away The tank is full The gear in drive The brake pressed hard to end the jive To do else would raise my stake, Force me to see some other scene, And risk seein...

When asked to go, his son did sigh, “I feel that I should sooner die.” But on he trudged to do the deed His mind beset in selfish greed But when that task was made to seem The consummation of his dream, The self-same boy voiced forth a shout, And left no time ‘fore setting out For work and play are each a word Whose meaning shades from clear to blurred While as one sees his work as play The other's pain’s on full display And though both speak of being free, One has the lock, and one the key.

These words wrought from a shallow kiln Grow brittle in the cool Now and then I’ll extricate one That lights the room for a night But the day is always brighter Always giving voice to the words I could not form Writ large on some immutable tablet of stone As a sun that compels the eyes To both squint and see In one brilliant opus of enlightenment Never again will it be night Until I turn back toward my kiln And blow asthmatic breath to coax the fire again Drawing forth the thin filament of language That dimmed conductor of understanding That warms and warns for a time But only till that time When words say less than silence When radiance makes me blind And in those moments when I with purpose Turn my eyes up to see again that which the day shows I will write Write because I can’t speak And even then I will be mute.

Some trickle slowly Like a last drink in the desert Savoring the few drops left for one more breath Some pour in measured regulation Knowing, always knowing, how much has gone And never peering back at how much is left Others cascade a reckless liquid avalanche Purging good and bad in carnivals That rarely last the night And then there are those who watch it all Parched and cotton-mouthed, Drinking in the lives of others While washed in rivers unknown to them It is these I pity most And these I most resemble.

   These are my thoughts on William Blake's "A Poison Tree."    "A Poison Tree" (William Blake)    I was angry with my friend;     I told my wrath, my wrath did end.     I was angry with my foe:     I told it not, my wrath did grow.     And I water'd it in fears,     Night & morning with my tears:     And I sunned it with smiles,     And with soft deceitful wiles.     And it grew both day and night.     Till it bore an apple bright.     And my foe beheld it shine,     And he knew that it was mine.     And into my garden stole,     When the night had veil'd the pole;     In the morning glad I see;     My foe outstretched beneath the tree. ​ The speaker uses the word anger twice in the ...

Dislodged from the cloud tomb, I descend into the disillusioned silence Of a crowd watching three men Each on his dais of choice, They speak from mind and lung and heart Speak to the watchers Who covet the difference between life and living The first from his dais of stone Looks forward and contends, “Know that what you sense and say Is all there is at end of day.” The second from his dais of dust Looks down and recalls, “All there is and all there was Come to be from what one does.” The third from a dais of glass Looks up and muses, “I may live both dumb and plain But this one thing I know I see That mountains move from their refrain When thoughts take flight in reverie For men who seek the means to heal Are bound to sink at what they feel The mind and breath are bound in three Bound by your cord of love for me.