A student asks the old poet why he has spent so many years writing. The old poet says no one’s asked him that before. He needs a minute to answer.

It was an ancient city. All the young people left as soon as they could but the old remained in their mortgaged huts

It’s an old clock hanging on a wall in a small room on the third floor. We go up there

Noon meal at the nursing home and everyone is there chowing down and talking. Before dessert is served there’s an announcement to be made

I turn on the news to see who won the game last night but first the scores from hot spots in the city. Two people are killed

Let me be a star and shine in places darkness dwells or let me be a bell and ring in places

We’re all salmon swimming upstream until the job’s done. Some of us know it and some of us don’t.

She’s at a flower show miles away arranging roses in a vase very carefully.

The last visitor before I sleep is always the old priest puffing up the stairs to my door, a wine cask under each arm, a loaf of pumpernickel in his teet…

You have to be married at least 30 years to know what your wife is thinking before she says it aloud. More than 40 years to know

After the doctor tells Ahmad his test results, Ahmad says he needs a new place to live. His tent’s in ruins, Ahmad says. His body will soon shake a final t…

At a school reunion festive and grand a young teacher makes a point with a retired teacher

Gram tells Stella on the phone her neighborhood is full of old fo… She hasn’t seen Stella in 60 year… and won’t see her again because of the canyon of miles between the…

Underneath the feeder black juncos write hieroglyphics in the snow. Two cardinals arrive In a flash of red. They add

Three sisters single in their 40s gather 'round the fire on a night of thunder to figure out which sister