One of the gravestones in the cemetery near the earliest church has an anchor on it and an hourglass, and the words In Hope. In Hope. Why did they put that above a dead person? Was it the corpse hoping, or those still alive?

I'm a novelist, and idle speculation is what novelists do. How odd to spend one's life trying to pretend that non-existent people are real: though no odder, I suppose, than what government bureaucrats do, which is trying to pretend that real people are non-existent.

Truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a few compensations.

It wasn't so easy though, ending the war. A war is a huge fire; the ashes from it drift far, and settle slowly.

Social media is called social media for a reason. It lends itself to sharing rather than horn-tooting.

Like many modern poets, I tend to conceal rhymes by placing them in the middle of lines, and to avoid immediate alliteration and assonance in favor of echoes placed later in the poems.

Some people mistakenly think nature is very nice and benevolent and never betrays.