Pebble on the Tongue

Overheard in a Wisconsin Bakery: Customer:  I’d like a whole pecan pie, please. Server: I’m sorry but I only have left a layer pie with pecans on top. Customer: Really?  I had my heart set on the pecan. Server: Let me tell you, this pie has a layer of chocolate fudge in the middle. That […]

Meandering one day like a crew that had mislaid its compass, we stopped at a wayside pancake house.  As we chattered inconsequentially, a server emerged from the kitchen with a full breakfast platter, slipped on some wet tile and fell spectacularly to the floor, legs splayed, one arm flailing.  But she managed to hold perfectly […]

In a season of bewilderment like our own, a word from African tradition may prove useful: When you are not clear on a destination,You do well to remember whence you came. That is, recall Such recollections can whisper where to plant next steps. *Travelers in desert lands, facing prolonged thirst, have learned that a small […]

Two lines from a classical Chinese poet whose experience of ‘traipse’ touches on travels occasioned by work, fancy, family or even, duress – two lines that may anticipate some great, ultimate move, for which present ‘traipses’ are but rehearsal. The sorrow at leaving my city fades before the old joy of being in new mountains. […]

It may well be in the course of a traipse, even a pious pilgrimage, that a wild flower will trump St. Peter’s Basilica itself. When I Returned From Rome A bird took flight.A flower in a field whistled at me as I passed.I drank from a stream of clear water.And at night, the sky untied […]

Pausing in Osaka along ‘The Narrow Road to the Deep North’ with his travel-worn satchel,having taken in the cherry blossom temples, the wild coasts and stately mountains, Basho, the forebear of Haiku writes of his meanders, To talk casuallyAbout an iris flowerIs one of the pleasuresOf the wandering journey. Yes, one of many small – […]