The Run a Muck

just this day, a Rock Home Companion

Amber — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:47:33 +0000

All they need is story, so they roll in the yard, in the sun spreading out a blanket, and they play bugs, hiding in the thousand shadows of dry leaves. Their climbing tree stands naked as if to have shaken out of a yellow dress. Yellow everywhere. Velvet. All they need is a tree and a wheel [...]

The Invisible Real

Amber — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 06:00:40 +0000

So what of imagination when it’s splayed open, the little ones exposed and raising their voices like commercials in explanation: Look here, Mama, at the great invisibles; see the wolf in the curtain, the train come to take us, the deep water below the bed? So what of it - when I give the yeah -yeahs [...]

Make art and give it away. Un-numb a culture.

Amber — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 03:31:53 +0000

photograph by Serviam Photography Two weeks ago, invited to a friend’s home to hear a free concert, I sardined myself into a car with friends, laughing, relaxing into myself a little, expectations left with the babysitter of our 3 sons. It’s not exactly Calgon taking me away, but it’s a break, and really, I need a [...]

I’m home, mostly: a companion

Amber — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:17:50 +0000

Behind my parents house in Alabama is a stretch of big woods that drops off in hard edges, boulders precariously stacked below in whispering creek beds. When the sun finally started shining up over the hollow (holler), it lit up the leaves, all the yellow barely hanging on, God-art in action, the prettiest display I’ve [...]

L.L. Barkat’s Stone Crossings: A Review

Amber — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 06:01:53 +0000

Dribbled with coffee, circled, and underlined throughout, Stone Crossings, by L.L. Barkat, shuts in my lap. A little one has been flying a hero in my face and wallowing all over me, and even still, I shut the book having been glued to L.L.’s story, which is also my story, and yours. The toy zooms past [...]