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From the Archives
Archipelagoes
I am on a tiny island in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland with a full-grown ram between my legs — not the way I usually spend a summer Saturday. This began as a simple errand, to fetch a fleece for dyeing from John Finlay, a crofter and neighbor of my hosts.
July 2009
Talk
The sound of air expanding in my chest cavity and then being forced past the catgut of my vocal cords — that’s the sound my mother heard. It was a frightening, ugly sound, but the grief was pure and clean. Against the thickness of it, the viscosity, my mother would segue from soothing words into stories.
May 2002
B I R D
On a hot summer day when my brother was eight months old, my father carried him to the top step of the back porch, lifted him over his head, and tossed him into the weeds.
February 1996In Praise Of Four-Letter Words
We yell shit / when the egg carton slips / and the ivory globes / splatter on blue tile. / And when someone leaves you / bruised as a dropped pear, you spit / that fucker, fucking bastard, motherfucker.
December 2004Why Religion Endures
On a spectrum of postures toward religious faith that runs from organized hostility to muffled contempt to resigned forbearance to never-crosses-my-mind indifference to against-my-better-judgment curiosity to serious interest to fellow-traveling to heartfelt engagement to missionary fervor, where do you place yourself, and how does that dispose you to others’ positions?
March 2016
On Not Believing
If you look hard enough for a reason to support something you want to believe in, you’ll find it. We select a belief as we do a mate, seeking for that which best reflects ourselves and our needs. Both are fragile and tenuous affairs, but how much more fervently one will hold onto some beliefs, after many loves have come and gone.
April 1974
The Prophet Explains Religion
OK so he don’t look like a prophet but he’s / A real smart old guy. Got a place / Over a Chinese restaurant on Broadway / & you got something you want to ask / Just take him some chateau la hooch & go up the back way. / Says PROPHET IS IN on the door.
February 1992My First Night At The Initiation Camp
This year the millet fields had been generous and the harvest good. The hard work of collecting and transporting grain from the farm to the house roofs, where it waited to be put into the granaries, was over. Now, in the fallow dry season, the villagers turned their attention to spiritual matters — to initiation.
August 1994My Jets Cap
One day a woman on a subway platform called out to me, “Go, Jets!” while raising her fist. Puzzled, I looked behind me and saw no one. Then I remembered: I was wearing a Jets cap.
January 2017
