Dark news

What is up with all the dead birds? First Austin, then this story out of Australia. Scary.

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Just received my copy of Rigoberto Gonzalez's Butterfly Boy: looking forward to reading it.

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Last week my dad's sister died. Mom hung up from the call and the phone rang again with the news that her own sister had also died. What are the odds of something like that?

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This poem has been on my mind:

MY DEAD FRIENDS

I have begun,
when I'm weary and can't decide an answer to a bewildering question

to ask my dead friends for their opinion
and the answer is often immediate and clear.

Should I take the job? Move to the city? Should I try to conceive a child
in my middle age?

They stand in unison shaking their heads and smiling--whatever leads
to joy, the always answer,

to more life and less worry. I look into the vase where Billy's ashes were--
it's green in there, a green vase,

and I ask Billy if I should return the difficult phone call, and he says, yes.
Billy's already gone through the frightening door,

whatever he says I'll do.

- Marie Howe, What the Living Do

[photo: campus call box light]