On witnessing the glacier at Saint-Bernina, Switzerland, June 7, 2014 Snow-blinded, it is hard to see at first My eyes come to rest on a valley where serene snow mass divides and forms a gelid chute Impervious, alive yet paralyzed.   White tongue of solid ice deceptively still and silent, but beneath static serenity a…

Yesterday a tree fell in our yard and I didn't hear it. Of course I didn't - I was here in Switzerland, thousands of miles away from home. But I felt the impact, I can tell you. Our son called to tell us about a huge thunderstorm in Durham and he walked us through the…

I love graveyards. I try to visit them whenever I am traveling in a new city. Often they are more beautiful than the city parks and they are always, without fail, worth the price of admission (free). In Durham, I sometimes run through the historic antebellum Maplewood Cemetery, set on a grassy knoll on the…