The Writer's Almanac with Garrison KeillorThe Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor

With my arms raised in a vee, I gather the heavens and bring my hands down slow together, press palms and bow my head. I try to forget the suffering, the wars, the ravage of land that threatens songbirds, butterflies, and pollinators. The ghosts of their wings flutter past my closed eyes as I breathe... Read more »

And on those hot afternoons in July, when my father was out on the tractor cultivating rows of corn, my mother would send us out with a Mason jar filled with ice and water, a dish towel wrapped around it for insulation. Like a rocket launched to an orbiting planet, we would cut across the... Read more »

Love has many joys and best are the surprises as when you changed the col- or of your hair to make me think you were someone else not that you fooled me with your sweet deceit I had only to hear you laugh to know both girls were you & that I loved you both... Read more »

This is my letter to the World That never wrote to Me— The simple News that Nature told— With tender Majesty Her Message is committed To Hands I cannot see— For love of Her—Sweet—countrymen— Judge tenderly—of Me

I’m on my knees among the crisp brown crunch then stand in time to see two boys slim teens in shorts white t-shirts faces glowing talking quietly bounce of a tennis ball fading as they pass and I’m filled again with a crush of old sweetness at how giving a moment can be as it vanishes the roughened grey branches... Read more »

Such a universal female gesture, a woman grabbing the seam of her stocking, tugging it forward over the exposed toe, tucking it under her foot so the tear won’t show. There’s something graceful and humble about the way she will balance, crane-like, on one foot, cradling the other in her hand, her back bent, her... Read more »

walking with dogs and pear trees in bloom reminded me of mom canning pickles with Carol Rink as a kid, content with my zebco 33, johnny hardcranker, minnows and cork, channel cats at dusk, crappie in the spring with grandma and her cane pole, the arc of her casts, the girlish giggle as she landed... Read more »

Everything dies, I said. How had that started? A tree? The winter? Not me, she said. And I said, Oh yeah? And she said, I’m reincarnating. Ha, she said, See you in a few thousand years! Why years, I wondered, why not minutes? Days? She found that so funny—Ha Ha—doubled over— Years, she said, confidently.... Read more »

The far court opens for us all July. Your arm, flung up like an easy sail bellying, comes down on the serve in a blue piece of sky barely within reach, and you following tip forward on the smash. The sun sits still on the hard white linen lip of the net. Five-love. Salt runs... Read more »

Yes, I see you down there looking up into my vastness. What are you hoping to find on my vacant face, there within the margins of telephone wires? You should know I am only bright blue now because of physics: molecules break and scatter my light from the sun more than any other color. You... Read more »