Underneath the feeder black juncos write hieroglyphics in the snow. Two cardinals arrive In a flash of red. They add

There are good souls who say poverty need not always be with us who say there’s a way to make it disappear

Spring will eventually arrive, Tom tells his youngest daughter looking out the window at the snow… Take heart, he tells her, and listen for the blue jays when

They got along fine lying down but sitting up or standing, well that was quite another thing. Talking made things worse. Lying down they found

Things reach a certain age, an age at which things don’t work the way they once did. The battery in your car,

Fred prefers a mouse connected by a wire to his keyboard. Walt prefers a mouse that’s portable, able

You think he’d be more grateful. Neither rich nor poor he’s never wanted for anything. He’s always had what he needs but never had any gratitude

The weekday Mass at 6 a.m. brings old folks out from bungalows around the church. They move like caterpillars

A bright winter day and not a leaf left on this skeleton tree teeming with sparrows

One has to be careful campaigning door-to-door. One doesn’t know who’s behind any door. Could be someone

Fred and Martha have always voted the same way since their marriage long ago but not this time and Fred wondered why Martha was voting the other way

In my all-boys school sixty years ago there were two boys who were different. All four years they walked to classes together, books

Midnight in San Francisco. Yoshiko is 93 and she can’t sleep so she sits in her recliner and nibbles on a rice cake,

Let me be a star and shine in places darkness dwells or let me be a bell and ring in places