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A Harvest Bow for my father on his Birthday
One winter Sunday in Phoenix, I woke to the high-pitched scrape of steel on steel, my father in the kitchen sharpening my dull bread knife because “for God’s sake, it wouldn’t cut butter.” I stayed in bed. A brand new widow, stuck in the past because I knew my way around it, I allowed the familiar sound of the long…
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an outrageous act – the day before Obama won again
Just this week, ten years since I first published this post, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals published a decision on the Texas v. United States DACA case, agreeing with the original judgment on the case that DACA is illegal but renewals for existing DACA recipients will remain open. For a decade, the Obama administration’s DACA program has provided protection from…
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After death of a spouse, Aging, Being a Widow, Bellaghy, Castledawson, Death and dying, Dennis O'Driscoll, Derry, Dispatch from the Diaspora, FInal wishes, Funeral, Grieving, Keeping Going, Loss, Love, Memoir, Milestones, Mourning, Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland Culture, Postscript, Rituals, Seamus Heaney
Epitaph . . . for your birthday
Epitaphby Merrit Malloy When I dieGive what’s left of me awayTo childrenAnd old men that wait to die.And if you need to cry,Cry for your brotherWalking the street beside you.And when you need me,Put your armsAround anyoneAnd give themWhat you need to give to me. I want to leave you something,Something betterThan wordsOr sounds. Look for meIn the people I’ve…
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9/11, Anything can Happen, Billy Collins, Healing Field Tempe, Memoir, Remembering September 11th, Seamus Heaney, Terrorism, Themes of childhood
severe clear – september 11
What I remember about the morning of September 11 is how blue the sky was above the Twin Towers on my TV screen. And, I remember the feeling of revulsion so familiar to me from growing up in a tiny country where every day is an anniversary of some atrocity. Until that morning, I had taken for granted the sense…