Erwin and Ruth Thompson snuggle up on a past wedding anniversary
Second Love
by Erwin A. Thompson
For the second anniversary of Ruth’s death, May 1, 2006
My first love was like a pansy,
brought too soon from the greenhouse’ sheltering glass.
A late frost took its vicious toll.
That love was never meant to last.
My second love was like […]
Flora, Goddess of Flowers
May first. May Day is a many-splendored thing with more official holiday designations than perhaps any other day of the year. I recall as a child weaving May Day wreaths from spirea branches cut from our bushes and hanging them on our neighbors door. I especially liked hanging my wreath on […]
My father while going through 100s of hours of recorded music tapes (one of his projects this winter is re-recording), he got fed up with all the “cheating” songs. He thought he would put in his version. He stayed up until Midnight writing it and this note that goes along with it. —JGR
Erwin A. Thompson, […]
Photo by Y. Magier
This story emerged in my father’s memory as we had our morning telephone chat. When Pop came to the part where Harrold had his feet up on the desk, he said, with a glint of mischief in his voice: “He did not look to be gainfully employed.” This is so typical of […]
My brother is one of the most competent men I know. He can repair a tractor, bake a pie, and help me with my taxes—all in the same day! That’s an Eagle Scout for you. This week he cooked dinner at the homeplace for not only Pop, himself, and myself, but as a special […]
My Uncle Willard (Davenport) Thompson mostly wrote prose in his life, but we recovered this poem from his papers this winter during my father’s documentation project.
Uncle Willard was a brilliant man caught short in the Great Depression who used his creativity to start a literary magazine, Ride the Rails as a hoboe, and, […]
Pop gets up a little later now at 92. He’s earned it, as I see it.
“I feel like Aunt Mim. She told me, ‘Erwin, it takes me an hour to get out of bed.’ My this and my that aches. I’m getting to be an old man, and I don’t like it.”
“True. It’s not […]
For me, family dates are engraved on my heart. March 13th will ever be Julia’s day. Will ever be my sister’s birthday. She lives within us, and curiously, seems to age right along with us. On this birthday, and every birthday, she lives beyond her death day.
In 2005 on the first birthday after Julia’s death […]
love is a place
by e e cummings
love is a place
& through this place of
love move
(with brightness of peace)
all places
yes is a world
& in this world of
yes live
(skilfully curled)
all worlds
Child and Hawk Dream by Judy Tart
Please read my post on Love of Place: “Land Blesses and Embraces Sisters Ashes” by clicking here.
A foot of snow atop our bluff: Evergreen Heights, Jersey Township, SW Illinois.
Mother, that which you filled and then emptied,
we fill again as best we can.
Your chair hold us at the wheelhouse hub,
yet a glance windowward unfolds and holds worlds beyond.
This morning’s world insulated in a snowy rug.
Cardinal families flit-flash at the new-fangled feeders
Daddy fills […]
