Blog
My Grandmothers’ Name Is Rose
"These taste even better now than they did in the summer!" remarks my son Montana, as he licks a frozen popsicle on this clear January day. Indeed. In the dead of winter, our bodies are longing for scarce fresh vitamins and antioxidants, so these fruity treats taste...
Bones
BONES the architectures of our inheritance are dancing us. Though we may walk deafened through the noisy fray, searching the blather of strangers for a clue. Though wrapped in gortex, we get wet Though stuffed with fois gras, still we hunger Our eyeballs drowned in...
Fourth of July
My cats dislike fireworks. And so do I. And it's not even the fourth of July. Unimpressed by bombs bursting we avert our eyes and continue speaking with firelight, one thousand genial eyes jumping out to join us in their subtlety. The nations crane their necks skyward...
Eating Beauty
I walk quietly on barefeet through my garden, erupting with summer solstice blooms, butterflies filled to bursting with nectar. I have to expand my ribs..... lower, around the sides...to be able breathe in all this in. To really eat this beauty. I slow down, low to...
Lovely Lady Dandelion
Sweet Spring swings back round the wheel of the year Chirping frogs and bursting blossoms Lovely lady dandelion with her impossibly yellow mane. Her perky face popping among the grasses Always reminds me of my mother going to her grave adorned in golden garlands Each...
Greenwashing Du Jour: FARM TO BAG
GREENWASH DU JOUR: "Farm to Bag" By Nala Walla Today I beheld a bag of pretzels, boldly waving its banner: Farm to Bag???!!!! Call me crazy, but doesn't this sentiment drastically miss the point? The whole idea behind the farm-to-table movement is that processing,...
Suckers
SUCKERS by Nala Walla When I hear the word “sucker,” I think of the plum tree in my garden, which sends out little shoots and leaves in a circle around itself, pushing up dozens of baby sprouts everywhere in an effort to reproduce. Many-a-plant species uses...
Good Grief
GOOD GRIEF By Nala Walla Ask modern people about the word grief and we will usually mention sorrow, depression, death, and anguish—something we have developed all sorts of medications to “treat,” something we pray won’t happen to us. And when we are unavoidably...
Body Is Earth
BODY IS EARTH Carbon, water, nitrogen, oxygen—the same materials that comprise the Earth, also make up our own blood and bones, our breath and our brains. Our shedding hair, skin, tears, and eventually our entire bodies are all returned to the Earth where they break...