I woke this morning to light streaking the dark sky. The aurora borealis had eluded me through two autumn visits to Iceland and my first winter in Alaska. Now it swept over my neighborhood like cosmic fireworks for New Year’s Day. I stepped onto the snowy balcony in my bathrobe, catching my breath at the … More Writing the Future: A New Chapter
Science rescued poetry for me. Verse had charmed me as a child. Dad often read kid-friendly poems aloud; I can still recite The Owl and the Pussycat and How Doth the Little Crocodile. Mom encouraged us to write haiku, limericks, and other forms as part of our homeschool education. My whole family loved Shel Silverstein’s … More Unconstrained By Form: Three Poets Who Studied Nature Through Verse
Cold air cleansed my lungs as my crampons bit the ice, hungry for the trail after weeks in the garage. February’s frostbite-inducing temperatures had confined most of my runs to the treadmill’s miasma of rubber and sweat. Once the mercury crept into the teens, I pounced on the opportunity to run outdoors again, inhaling the … More Where There’s Smoke: EPA Air Quality Indices Ignore Deadly Wildfire Pollution
I leaned over the stewpot and laughed into the fragrant steam. “When did we start eating like peasants?” It wasn’t a complaint, but a cheeky observation on our evolving household diet. Five years ago I rarely made soup unless someone was ill, and then it came from a can. Now the remains of a rotisserie … More Seeds of Change: Cultivating a Sustainable Food System
Only one thing scared me about moving to Alaska six months ago. Not the remoteness. Australia got me hooked on wild environments with more nature than civilization, so this was actually a selling point. Not the wildlife. While moose and bears can be aggressive, photography has taught me to keep a respectful distance (and a … More A World Without Winter: New Projections for Climate Change in the Arctic
Living in Australia had gotten me and my Laddie off the hook for Thanksgiving travel since 2019, and we expected our recent relocation to Alaska would extend the streak. Then he wound up on a November business trip back to our native mid-Atlantic. With people we hadn’t seen in three years conveniently congregating for the … More A Cornucopia of Dystopia: Thanksgiving in the Anthropocene
Wild Type 