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A Tribute To Chris Bursk

The selection that follows — just a small sample of the fifty-plus poems of his that have appeared in The Sun — display the heart and honesty that first drew us to Chris’s work in 1977. A self-described “compulsive writer,” Chris once said, “I do not wait for inspiration. . . . Some days I watch the page until a few words come — and then I find myself inside the world they invite me into.” That world will be missed.

The Brahmin’s Son

One must find the source within one’s own Self, one must possess it. Everything else was seeking — a detour, error.

The Other Side Of The Mountain

This was what it was like to do the work she did, to recognize the person in the dying body and to stay with them — like bearing witness to light moving through wreckage, stubborn and pure.

My Brother’s Dinner With The President Of Sears

After this friend left, I excused myself to go to the bathroom, where I shut the door and fell to my knees, shaking and crying. I wished that my brother had been different. And I wished that I had been more forgiving and compassionate. I wished that everything between us had been different. I was on that floor for a while.

Sent Away

Kenneth R. Rosen On The Troubled-Teen Industry

Some of these children do need help, but is this the right type of help? Over the years counselors have been charged with sexual abuse, physical abuse, and predatory behavior.

Sunbeams

Is marijuana addictive? Yes, in the sense that most of the really pleasant things in life are worth endlessly repeating.

Richard Neville

Mr. X

One Scientist’s Experience With Cannabis

The illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingly mad and dangerous world.

What I Lived For

When I was young, I lived for what I thought of as “lyrical moments,” when the details of life were suddenly heightened and approached the transcendent. . . . Of course, if you live long enough, you start thinking more and more not about the lyrical but rather about time. . . . I am living to stay alive.

Inheritance

I would like to give you a metaphor that describes what it’s like to potentially pass on to one’s children a pathogenic variant that will possibly go on to kill them, but everything I am coming up with is histrionic.