For Historians, Creative Writers Provide A Kind

It Follows That If You Are Not A Mother You Are Not A Grandmother. Your Life Has Become Unpunctuated, Whereas The Lives Of Other Women Around You Have These Distinct Phases.

You Can Have A Silence Full Of Words. A Lute Retains, In Its Bowl, The Notes It Has Played. The Viol, In Its Strings, Holds A Concord. A Shriveled Petal Can Hold Its Scent, A Prayer Can Rattle With Curses; An Empty House, When The Owners Have Gone Out, Can Still Be Loud With Ghosts.

A Statute Is Written To Entrap Meaning, A Poem To Escape It.

[h]ope Takes You By The Throat Like A Stranger, It Makes Your Heart Leap.

The Weight Of The Old World Is Stifling, And Trying To Shovel Its Weight Off Your Life Is Tiring Just To Think About. The Constant Shuttling Of Opinions Is Tiring, And The Shuffling Of Papers Across Desks, The Chopping Of Logic And The Trimming Of Attitudes. There Must, Somewhere, Be A Simpler, More Violent World.