Nine years ago today, our son was born. Three days later, he died in my arms. Reflecting on my life as it is now, it is hard to imagine being the father of a nine-year-old boy. Yet it is equally hard to imagine my life without this experience of both loving and letting him go. […]
“All the new thinking is about loss. / In this it resembles all the old thinking.” -Robert Hass, “Meditation at Lagunitas“ Love and loss have been very present with me lately. Such thoughts were recently punctuated by the heavy thud of a parcel dropping through our mail slot–my contributor’s copy of The Book of Love
What a day it has been. I woke up to the news that my beloved spiritual teacher and friend since childhood, John-Roger, passed away in the early hours at the age of eighty. If there is one thing he taught me, it is to keep doing good, no matter what. Tonight my sister-in-law and our
My friend the Scottish poet Andrew Philip wrote a review of The Silence Teacher that I just discovered tonight. His perspective is one I greatly respect–not only because I hold him in such high esteem as a poet, but because he, too, has walked grief’s road after losing an infant son. It must have therefore
“Blue?” “Blau.” My ten-year-old friend is teaching me German as we play the card game Uno. His eyes are also “blau” and his hair light blonde. His English is only slightly further along than my heretofore-nonexistent German. So I mime. I ham it up, both winning and losing with panache. I shout “Uno!” and wave
“…what is poetry for, if not to represent the breaking of hearts?” -Fiona Moore, author of The Only Reason for Time The Silence Teacher has the honour of appearing in what is, sadly, the final issue of Sphinx that will carry poetry pamphlet reviews. This online guardian of the the poetry pamphlet has presided with
