Tag: Carley

  • Mother’s Day

    Mother’s Day

    Happy Mother’s Day to three of the most marvelous mothers (and most meaningful influences on yours truly!)

  • Downriver Drifting

    Downriver Drifting

    Sunday stream of consciousness riffling from birdsong to riverine rambling (and deftly sidestepping the complex concerns of Sarah McCartt-Jackson’s poem, “Borrow”.)

  • Homecoming Remix

    Homecoming Remix

    Over the last year and a half I have scrutinized the notion of home and my personal perspective on “homeness“. I’ve discovered that the experience of homecoming is perhaps one of the best barometers for indicating where (and with whom) we feel most at home. So today I offer you a homecoming remix — a…

  • Haunt & Hound

    Haunt & Hound

    I rewind the clock eleven years, resurfacing these slightly spooky captures of Griffin on March 29, 2013. Our late Labrador retriever still presides over Rosslyn’s entrance staircase in my memory. His handsome mug and build, relaxed and lethargic, gazing down, anticipating adventure. Or a banquet. The ghostly image and Griffin’s eyes conjure a perfect pub…

  • Home Away

    Home Away

    Two days ago I shared a scrapbook post that mentioned our “home away from home” and that subsequently referenced Curtain Bluff in Antigua (aka Wadadli). Immediate context was this welcome letter. That welcome letter and the sea urchin test (ie. shell) featured in that post. A fragile artifact from our home away from home… […]…

  • Hostess with the Mostest

    Hostess with the Mostest

    Yesterday a friend expressed confidence that his dog would notify him if an intruder entered his home. Our labrador retriever lets us know if someone arrives at our house, I explained, but whether family, friend, or intruder? It’s anybody’s guess. Carley welcomes one and all with enthusiasm. I laughed and suggested that an intruder brandishing…

  • Daddy’s Girl

    Daddy’s Girl

    One of the very best ways to begin and end the day is a Carley cuddle. Our unabashed daddy’s girl is always up for a snuggle, a massage, spooning, hammocking,… As an early bird — I’m usually up by 5 or 6 o’clock in the morning — breakfast duty falls to me. Since the outset…

  • Carley Understands

    Carley Understands

    If you could make your pet understand one thing, what would it be? If you’ve met Carley, our almost 4-year-old, Labrador retriever, (and many of you have!) you already know that she already understands one thing, many things, quite possibly all things! Don’t get me wrong, she’s not a know-it-all. She’s subtler than that. Understated.…

  • Canine Companions

    Canine Companions

    What is your favorite animal? So many animals to favor, and yet it is the wholeness, the interconnectedness, of *all* animals that I favor most. So, instead, I’ll respond to this prompt as a sort of playful panegyric to our canine companions, past, present, and future. For while I do not favor dogs above all…

  • Sitting Sentry

    Sitting Sentry

    Sometimes a poem is born of an idea once removed from reality. This even even supposed imagines Carley on “guard duty”, sitting outside the icehouse while I’m composing a tribute to her. I imagine myself looking down from the window above, observing her. A sentinel observing a sentinel. After all, isn’t a poet, a sort…

  • Sunup Sunday

    Sunup Sunday

    Up early for a soggy gray morning, rambunctious not-quite-winter wind thrashing and whorling, raindrops on and off, on and off,… Not quite the sunup Sunday I’d conjured in my technicolor imagination! It was the sort of unsettled environment that makes the prospect of returning to bed more inviting than, say, making breakfast for Carley. But…

  • Thank You, Pam!

    Thank You, Pam!

    As we approach the fourth Thursday of November we’re provisioning for an indulgent holiday banquet with family. Thanksgiving is all about family and feasting, for sure. But it’s first and foremost a ritualized reminder to pause and reflect on everyone for whom we’re grateful and everything for which we’re grateful. In both cases, Pam Murphy…