Anyone else out there haunted by the calls of owls, coyotes, wolves, in the middle of the night?  Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have t...

My dog hides nothing: his love, his pain, his hunger, his tiredness. As a result, he tends to get what he wants and needs. I am not like my dog. Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of li...

Little things. Tiny things. Things to hold gently. Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.Original theme mus...

So much pain in life, the kind of pain inflicted by humans upon each other because of differing theologies, feels unnecessary to me. Can't we all be who we are?Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the pass...

It's a beautiful thing, how a poem written more than three thousand years ago can come shimmering up through the ages, an arrow to the heart.  Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life...

Years go by and you live through so many things that don’t turn out as you hope, and you know this will keep on happening. The flip side of this is a kind of gratitude I could not have felt when I was younger, a combination of telescope and mic...

Oh, Ms. Parker. Ms. Parker! How do you do what you do? I read your poems over and over.  Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help ea...

Oh, childhood and the friends we made then. The friends I had when I was a child will be with me forever, even if only in memory, in a kind of longing way.  Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the pa...

I'm preparing my garden for winter as this episode airs, and feeling nostalgic for its summer glory, something that the poet seems to feel as well. Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of...

Oh, the fathers. The fathers and those who stand in for fathers. My own father is gone now, and how I miss him.  Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there...

Sterling A. Brown's work stays with me, making me think about childhood, and the things we leave behind, but why? Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out ther...

All summer, he's hiddenhis voice, no matter how I begged forjust one song.Three lines from "Music Box" which, to me, encapsulate the love and anger and longing that siblings can feel for each other, all in the same mome...

Sometimes a simple poem, filled with a kind of resigned longing, belies the long meanderings of an extraordinary and complicated life. Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Becaus...

What are some of the most important things you've left off your resume, the kind of things that in your heart of heart are most important to you? Poet Joyce Sutphen lists some of hers, in this gorgeous poem.Words by Winter: Conve...

I tend to shy away from rhyme, thinking it'll be all jingly, but guess what? I'm so often wrong.Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help ...

To be loved by someone the way our couches love us? That's a beautiful thing, at least to someone like me, who personifies the furniture in her home. Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of li...

"Must I alone, my once, my own?" laments the poet. We've all been there, haven't we?Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other t...

What if we cared for everyone in pain, everyone suffering, the way we would care for our own child? Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to h...

This poem, Challenge, by Sterling A. Brown, has haunted me --not in a bad way, in a wondering sort of way--since I first came across it.Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. B...

Our physical bodies hold clues to what we're most drawn to do in life, or what we spend so much of our time doing, or where and how and with whom we've lived. Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the ...

There's something magical about this little poem, its lilt and wonder, its questions and imaginings.Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to h...

Sometimes you look at something you've seen a thousand times and suddenly you know something about it, or about yourself, that you never knew before.Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of lif...

Sometimes you just want a poem that swings and sways and washes in and out and carries you along with it, the way the sea does. Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough...

It's an odd experience, giving a chatbot an assignment to write about one of your own novels, and then see what it comes back with.Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s ro...

I'm looking right now at the tall pine in my front yard. I wish you could see it too.Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other ...