After dinner (that’s the mid-day meal in the country, folks) on the back eating porch, my father rested his eyes gazing outdoors to the garden and the hemlock tree. “I planted that tree 60 years ago,” Pop said, “It’s grown some. I can remember the day I planted it. We had some hemlocks for sale,…
I wanted to post this poem alongside my father’s commentary on the hemlocks. Some of you may know it, but it gets deeper for me when I see it alongside the story of the two hemlocks. And, just a reminder that “Riehlife,” the blog is the face page for “Riehlife” the website. If you go…
This quote is widely attributed to Victor Hugo’s novel “Toilers of the Sea.” But is it? Read more about the quote search here at Victor Hugo Central. Never-the-less, here is the well-known and comforting quotation: I am standing upon that foreshore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and…
Last year we gathered together and I presented a special event for Hayner Public Library in Alton, Illinois. I gave a talk combined with music (Daddy and I played) and poetry followed by a workshop on memory. You can read this talk “Memories: Each Day Radiant with New Meaning” by clicking here which will take…
Velda Brotherton and I were chatting under the electronic shade tree, sipping lemonade, trading our pet language peeves one day when we decided we’d post and link on some of them at the same time. Velda’s started her list on her blog “On Being a Writer.” My top language peeve at the moment is the…
There have been times in history that are famous for artists-designers-architects-writers-dancers-musicians-theater folks coming together. These nexus in time have always hummed to me. If I were to step into a time machine, I would set the dial to the Arts and Crafts Movement (late 1800s and early 1900s), or perhaps the Paris Left Bank in…
I experience and seek this contrast of autonomy with connection in my relationships. At the heart of my decision to have a place to live apart from my father’s is this need to have a space and life of my own with its own momentum and direction. When I’m at my father’s, I’m in Daddy’s…
“Poetry is words on a page nibbling at the edge of something vast.” –Nebraska’s less-well-known poet laureate, William Kloefkorn (Suggested by Susan J. Tweit) Biography William Kloefkorn was named Nebraska Poet Laureate in 1982 and held that distinction for more than a decade. Often called “the Garrison Keillor of contemporary American poetry,” Kloefkorn’s poetry collections…
What I seek in my life is “autonomy with connection.” What does that mean? To be fully myself, but in the context of community. To have a balance of time by myself, and time to connect with others. To me, this is the quest of the artist. To create anything, there is always a period…
Curt brought his “Tatler,” our high school year book to the reunion. In high school we knew each other only tangentially, so making a new friendship out of an old shoe is particularly fun for me. At the Saturday networking event there was a paperwork snafu, and they challenged his credentials as a member of…