Writing and Photos
We were supposed to go in 2020, didn't even consider it in 2021, and finally just made it happen in 2022. Rome, Florence and Tellaro, Italy for two weeks in the high summer heat and high tourist season. Such is the way when your partner is on a school teacher schedule. A small price to... Continue Reading →
September 1, 2021 Too cold to swim and no campfires, we went on a rescue mission pulling green plastic balls from the creek (what are they? fishing lures? But without holes to string them?). Then we had a talent show. Elaine fully remembered a cartwheel and handstand. I half remembered the hand jive from a... Continue Reading →
May 24, 2021 I took a few pictures over the month of May. They’re all the words I have to share for now. May 24, 2021 Also, here’s one of the things I’ve been doing this last month. This is George. Also, Gorgeous George, Little Guy, and Professor Louis Leaky (because he drools like a... Continue Reading →
SE Belmont. Portland, OR Mt. Tabor Portland, ORRockaway, OR Before the flood warning and the high wind warning and having my hotel room jiggle in the wind all night and waking up to no power and driving home through torrential rain. The sky did a magic trick called sun and cirrocumulus.The crows came out to... Continue Reading →
12/15/20 The veil may be thin, but it’s still impossible to see through in certain light, from certain angles, with certain eyes. May my eyes grow confused and unsure. 12/16/20 Somehow, on the wrong side of the raindrops. Thirsty. 12/17/20 I look at pictures of last week’s shadows. Last week’s chipped red paint. I stay... Continue Reading →
10/16/20 This is a whale’s backbone and this is a whale’s cervical spine. And we were there together. And we are here together. The whale marks the trail off the beach and into the dunes and toward the bay and around the cape and in the direction of home. My dream wrist wears one of... Continue Reading →
9/16/20 The punk rock kids across the street still sit on their front steps and smoke. The builders rebuilding the burnt down house across the street still nail and paint. But clients call and cancel, unable to step outside to get the mail. And I only duck out for thirty seconds at a time to... Continue Reading →
9/2/20 Mushrooms are an excuse. Going in, I didn’t care if I found any. Going out, my empty hands were free for moss and bark. 9/3/20 In the midst of all this dry and pale, red demands its due. 9/4/20 This is so much better than the picture I thought I was taking. A dahlia... Continue Reading →
7/9/20 The once-hidden sweet was never shy. She just wasn’t ready. Beauty is the armored body, opening. 7/10/20 The dance goes silvery then delicate then complicated then slippery then gone. 7/11/20 There is deep satisfaction in a miniature, a diorama, a dollhouse. Not so I can be god/giant wielding tiny things with my meaty fingers,... Continue Reading →
6/25/20 This tree told me they had young dreams of being a cloud but it took many many years to become one. 6/26/20 Stayed up too late nursing a hunch about out a slightly different future. Followed by two heart-racing phone calls, some strange number wanting 4am FaceTime. Who is this? I texted back but... Continue Reading →
6/11/20 No words today. Just color and light 6/12/20 I heard two gunshots in the middle of the night, close but not too close. And then I chased the guns through my dreams, one gun for each BANG. In the middle of my third dream, the guns turned into knives and the bangs turned into... Continue Reading →
4/29/20 This was a different neighborhood, but barely. A block I’d driven by a thousand times but never passed through on foot. And there they were, filling the front yard of an unassuming house. I nearly fell to my knees, but caught myself and simply bowed my head instead. Forgive me, I said. My worship... Continue Reading →
4/15/20 If you stand in just the right place, relax your eyes in their sockets, tilt back your head, unstick your tongue, remember your right twelfth rib, make friends with your knees and sink into the wide universe one inch under the cracked sidewalk, then a light appears behind a skull-sized ball of blooms and... Continue Reading →
What do you do when the energy in your body is loose, barely letters let alone words? You take photos of giant spiders you've killed. Or photos of the underside of smoke trees. Or maybe you go on walks, talking into your phone so that autocorrect becomes your co-author. Or maybe you garden. Or maybe... Continue Reading →
Confession: I had no interest in AWP, the country's biggest annual writing conference that happened to be in my city this year. I went to only one amazing off-site reading, nearly fainting from the crowd. I chatted with a few nice strangers there that I was literally rubbing elbows with. I’m sure there are lots... Continue Reading →
"Well, imagine how it all could be among us if we began to understand all the talk about dying and the news about dying and the visits to the hospital and the deathbed and the grave side and the memorial service, and all the sorrows and grief of life, as our initiation into personhood." - Stephen... Continue Reading →
I choose Before the Rain. When I start to describe the movie as Macedonian and Albanian, my partner holds up a hand, "That's all you need to say." He is history-minded and his heritage is Albanian, so he knows what this means. But it isn't that conflict I remember from the film. It's the love stories in... Continue Reading →
This story was originally published in Vinyl, March 2016. http://vinylpoetryandprose.com/2016/03/t-a-burkholder/ Threat of Rain She couldn’t see or feel it yet, but it was there. All that wet wanting to exhale from the sky. I’m walking fast because it’s about to pour. She had the explanation, the dismissive yet biting tone all ready before she got... Continue Reading →
Procrastination elimination month has been a success. Not an overwhelming success. The trellis in the backyard is still broken and I may or may not get around to prepping my garden beds in the next couple of days and I didn't submit that story anywhere, and, and, and... The ridiculous list posted below (far more... Continue Reading →
When I first moved to Portland, the art walk/street fair/Portlandia skit come to life known as Last Thursday didn't exist. Alberta Street was not "The Alberta Arts District." Back then, the hipster bar was a Baptist church. The gift boutique was a boarded up store front. Slowly, artists started to move into the area (for... Continue Reading →
Tracy Burkholder 