Real time. I know what that means. In common parlance it means clock time, calendar time. I know what lived time means. It means how long time feels, both living through it and looking back on it. January has 31 days. This year, and most years, to speak frankly, the lived time is about 91… Continue reading TIME TRAVEL IN NEW ENGLAND
Author: Liz Kirkpatrick
I spent my childhood with an English teacher for a mother, I majored in English at Mount Holyoke with a dissertation on William Blake, and spent 33 years as a public librarian. As Assistant Director at the Wethersfield Library I was in charge of, among other things, book clubs, publicity, and adult programs. A poetry group at the library lit a passion in me not only for reading but also for writing poetry. Our Writers' Circle grew out of writing workshops offered at the library.
I was read to from before I could walk or talk, so I suppose it's true that I have been reading and writing all my life. Now retired, I write, I read for my own delight, and read to my grandchildren for theirs. I developed and manage a library for a newly opened Episcopal Day School for middle schoolers, and serve as archivist for my parish. I have learned so much from my 'sisters of the pen' that I am on the brink of beginning to write prose. I want to to hear the full range of my writing voice, although it will probably always be on the verge of poetry. Just when I think I am finally a grownup, I discover I am off on another unexpected journey, as excited as a kid again.
STRANDED
Today I saw earthworms, stranded by dawn patient on a pavements rough crossing, willingly waiting for death in one of his thousand certain faces to collect the price for their spring night’s daring. Folks, eastering their way plan for hope resurrected again and again. Commencements and weddings roll in white gold processions of loss and… Continue reading STRANDED
What Can We Say This Spring
What can we say When there are no words That say how dark it is That say how cruel it is That say how wrong it is. Let’s just say light, love, peace And hope for those to come. A man sobs and clings to his teenage son, dead. Doctors weep as a six year… Continue reading What Can We Say This Spring
In Praise of Denial
Sometimes denial is the only way. Today there is a nor’easter battering New England. Inside, I don’t look outside. I picture what I saw one sunny day this week. The sky behind the trees was blue. The branches weren't as naked as they had been in November and December. The small twigs were denser, darkening… Continue reading In Praise of Denial
I Do Not Like November
I confess. I do not like November. The long dark, the short days and the comfortless cold do not give me a feeling of happiness or even contentment. All three are still heading in the wrong direction until the middle of December. I do like Thanksgiving. To be with family, especially when everyone there has… Continue reading I Do Not Like November
Why I Love History, Fictional or Real
I love reading historical fiction, as well as real history. I think I know why I find it so engaging. Because the people of the period described were ignorant of so many things that we now know, and vice versa. It puts what we see as tremendous and rapid change now, in perspective. It reminds… Continue reading Why I Love History, Fictional or Real
To An Unnamed Terrorist
I wrote this poem a week after 9/11/2001. Now that we have remembered that day 20 years later, it is still true, of not quite so raw. Did you think you’d rest in Paradise tonight? Your broken, blistered body made whole again, lie on silk-embroidered pillows of down, that jasmine air would be grateful simply… Continue reading To An Unnamed Terrorist
My Baseball Summer
I’ve had such fun this baseball summer. I have foolishly watched almost all the Red Six games, as I have since we moved to Massachusetts when I was eleven. I’ve suffered and rejoiced over the years since 1954. This summer I’ve done both. This summer I have loved even more watching my grandson’s Little League… Continue reading My Baseball Summer
Fourth of July 2021
On this fourth of July I know more than I did the last time we celebrated it…that is, before the pandemic. During the pandemic, libraries were closed along with everything else, and I had to read what there was in the house. What there were lots of in the house were biographies of U.S. Presidents. … Continue reading Fourth of July 2021
Memorial Day for India
As the pandemic begins to ease for us in the US it still rages in India. My brother-in-law is from New Delhi. Although no member of his family have been lost, since many are no longer in India and all the oldest have died already of natural causes, some years ago, it has a special… Continue reading Memorial Day for India
The Connecticut Writers' Circle 