The words came pounding at his door like ruffian bill collectors. He had turned them away so often that this time he decided to let them in. He took his thrashing equanimously: after all, the thrashing was less of a sacrifice than the years he had lost putting it off. The blows were filled with…

He was an old man now, but his eyes shone brightly when he spoke of women. The fire was alive and he had a strength and fierceness about him that belied his age, as if he had dined on some mysterious potion that kept the soul wild and strong and dangerous, even as his body…

There is the navel that must be licked and the neck that must be kissed. First it is a stroke here, then a caress there. The camera clicks away and while the photographer says softly “do this” and “do that,” we enfold and unfold. Soon it is as if the photographer has faded away, such…

I am raring to go on this 2010 thing. I got my share of bruises in 2009. It wasn’t pretty — but bruises teach you a lot and I’m sure that in 2010 I’ll have a chance to put those lessons to work for me. It was perhaps the best year and the worst year…

There has been a change in how I travel. Traveling used to be a matter of leaving home, cutting loose, thrusting out into wild world and waiting to see how it would change me. The world – if you let it – always changes you, but I used to have a clear sense of home…

We are born in the sacred flames, charred and purified, condemned and resurrected. In the moment of our birth, we are given the gift of our death, something to fear, something to cherish. All love-making in between is burdened and exalted by this knowledge. Our daily lives evolve with due diligence, connected to the careful…

The subtle interplay of things is on my mind. I watch how separate things are not; how things that are divided are not divided at all. I watch amazed as a thought first thought 37 years ago comes home to roost almost four decades following its first iteration. I watch as things undone many years…

Out of the waters rises the gift. The morning comes full of gifts. There is the gazelle that prances in my hallway waiting to be chased. (And, of course, I chase her.) Then there is the vision of a life beyond and parallel to this one – composed only of beauty and pleasure and wisdom…