Rat's Country: Funeral Fee

You go to a funeral to pay your respect.  That is the entrance fee.

Rat's Country: You Have to Be from These Parts to Get It...

"What did your father do to make a living while you were growing up in Elko?" I asked him.

"Around here, what is the most hated profession you can think of?" he replied.

I thought for a moment and said, "Work for the BLM."

"Wow!" he exclaimed.  "You got it on the first try."

Rat's Country: What Would Rover Do?

I'd like to shake off my petty annoyances the way a labrador retriever shakes off water.

Rat's Country: What I Can't Fix

I can't change your table mate,
the one whose teeth fall out on her plate
or the way your dinner
smells like death and ketchup.

Rat's Country: Harmonic Convergence

This morning wasn't staged.  It just happened:  the sound of a sudden thunderstorm and a Vivaldi violin concerto; the smell of rain and sage and fresh coffee.

It didn't last long.  That's okay.

Other People's Poems: A lovely poem by E.B. White

  Youth and Age

This is what youth must figure out:

Girls, love, and living.

The having, the not having,

The spending and giving,

And the melancholy time of not knowing.

This is what age must learn about:

The ABC of dying.

The going, yet not going.

The loving and leaving,

And the unbearable knowing and knowing

E.B. White

Poems and Sketches