Issue 445 | The Sun Magazine

January 2013

Readers Write

Snow

Skiing naked, horseback riding, building a “snow convict”

By Our Readers
The Dog-Eared Page

The War Prayer

“God’s servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two — one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken.

By Mark Twain
Sy Safransky's Notebook

January 2013

Note to self: don’t worry about your readers. Don’t worry about your reputation as a man with big ideas. You don’t feel big today.

By Sy Safransky
Quotations

Sunbeams

The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations.

David Friedman

The Sun Interview

Indefensible

David Krieger On The Continuing Threat Of Nuclear Weapons

The path to security can only be through total nuclear disarmament. We cannot indefinitely maintain a world of nuclear haves and have-nots, and we cannot go attacking every country that we think might be on the path to making a bomb.

By Leslee Goodman
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

Little Bird, Little Bird

There are four types of brick. I remember two of them: pavior and stock. Our row house was all brick with ledges near the roof, four stories up. Pigeons liked to make nests there, but it was stupid; the ledges were too shallow, and with the first strong gust of wind their nests blew down. Still, year after year, they did it. Optimists, those pigeons.

By Mary Jane Nealon
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

In Transit

My husband stands at the front of the bus, one hand clutching a rail, the other gripping a strap, his hospital gown floating below a puffy blue winter jacket.

By Patricia Foster
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

Why I Moved To The Country

I moved to the country after living in Oakland, California, for the better part of twenty-five years, adoring and defending my troubled city as if it were my wayward though generous lover.

By Ruth L. Schwartz
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

Twelve Reasons To Cry

Asking, “When was the last time you cried?” is even more personal than asking someone’s salary or weight.

By Heather Kirn Lanier
Fiction

Sanctuary

She boarded the train that propelled her into the past and the future both at once, giving her time to shift perspectives, to find her edges again, the places where her body and the world met.

By Christiane Buuck
Poetry

Family Tree

I watch my son high in the magnolia / where branches thin. His sister / at the foot of the tree shrieks for him / to come down and play with her.

By Lee Rossi
Poetry

Leah’s Daughter

The workshop was just about to get started when somebody noticed / that Leah looked glum & distracted & asked what was wrong, / & Leah told us her daughter had called from Iraq that morning, / hysterical, screaming & weeping.

By Steve Kowit
Poetry

The Language Of Sky

I’ve moved on. I hope you can too. / And just like that, I am lost. / It is possible we will not meet / again in this life.

By Ally Acker