FISHING FOR WORDS for creatives who write You stand on the edge of a shallow lake, casting your line, waiting for bites— some days, not a nibble.…
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THE SECRET OF BIRDS Phyllis Cole-Dai Outside the window, an hour before dawn, when night weighs heaviest on the neck of the world, one bird with pluck begins to sing I’m here I’m here I’m…
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NAMES WILL CARRY Phyllis Cole-Dai for Wanda and Tom I carry your names into the mountains you loved, though mountains have no need of names— they know each pilgrim that passes through by scent…
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“Only in Minnesota,” the guy shouts into the blizzard as he shovels behind our rear tires, “can you have eighteen inches of snow one day, then a week of ninety-degree days, followed by this shit!” His mountain-man…
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A friend shows me a beautiful potted mum. Its rich orange-red buds have burst open with vibrant sprays of sun-yellow at their center. The plant—of a variety called “Autumn Sunset”—is simply gorgeous. “The garden center…
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This morning I delivered Jihong to the Sioux Falls airport, an hour south of us, for the first leg of an overseas business trip. As he’d prepared to leave home, a strange sequence of problems…
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One wintry day, long ago, I had the privilege of visiting with a woman I'll call Rose. Ninety-five years old, she was recovering from a broken hip at the home of her daughter, a good…
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Note: In our last edition of Staying Power, I told a story about how stars had come to be in the night sky. In response, a reader asked me how the daytime sky had come…
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I've been out of studio this week. No worries, I'm fully recovered from last week's kidney stone attack (thanks for your well wishes). But with Jihong's university on spring break, we've headed for the hills—the Black…
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I The woman wades into the shallow stream. The frigid October water nips the skin of her legs. The gravelly bottom bites the soles of her bare feet. It’s too late in the season for…
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After a long, strenuous hike, you happen upon a river. A crude raft is beached on the sandy shore. Tacked to it is a paper that reads: “Take me downstream.” The handwriting strangely resembles your…
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Sometimes in life you just don’t know what you’re getting into. You’re reminded of this, the day you kayak through an otherworldly stretch of sea caves in the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. The Lakeshore is…
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