L U M I N A * N O S T R I

sweetness “I don’t like life… it always ends in death!” My not-yet-eight year old wailed. Our kitty, one of a set long gone and nowhere to be found. A couple days before,  she whisked out the back,  frolicked through the meadow Sat high on the arm  of an old Adirondack and explored the neighbors’ place, abandoned and spooky at will. A butterfly with her coloring, An ice cream made of the same Shades: part graham cracker crust, part Oreo, part cookie dough. “I hear how much  this hurts, dear.” I say  and trust When my girl is ready,  she’ll see our kitty’s  sweetness in all  it’s subtleties remains.

****A practice inspired by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer's  A Hundred Falling Veils  **** Low Lighting This isn't the poem I wanted to write. I wanted to tell you about my new light a hand made lamp stone like, from a friend moon shaped, a hollow wreath, as soft as such in its glow.  Instead, I have to tell you and my daughter, and son and baby, that Pudding the  cat has gone missing, and  living where we live, we  all know what that means...  Farewell, sweet therapy cat! my grief for you feels like a soft light far off in the distance; one I walk bravely  toward, at my own  pace. reluctantly so.

The Trouble with Precepts On Tuesday, September Second, (twenty one days until  I had my last birthday in my third decade) I opened to Cato’s  precepts, and read the first five, thinking that's all he wrote.  I laughed, then,  as I turned the page and realized Cato–the man had much to say to his dear son, and thus the precepts went on and on and on.  liberos edui- teach your children I found easy enough  to romanticize, making a list of the all other words he did not say as permission to not punish, but instruct in a manner that one sees fit.  meretrix fuge- flee the harlot was a tougher one, I admit  Could that mean slut? Why was that word so easy to remember? Why did it make me think of meros the Greek for unmixed wine? If I were a man, which type of  woman would I hope my  children flee? A woman who had sex for money? A woman who enjoyed sex?  A woman who had sex with more than just one gender, one person? A woman who eschewed m...