by Donna Salli | Aug 27, 2020 | Blogs
There’s something friendly about a frog. The year I was in first grade, my family lived with my father’s parents on their small farm. A few Holsteins and their calves roamed the pastures, along with chickens, barn cats, and a scruffy collie. There had once been workhorses and pigs. The pigpen was still there, a visible reminder, and the horses’ leather harnesses hung dust-covered on pegs in the barn. The farm seemed magical. My brother and I spent our time outside, catching things—butterflies, lightning bugs, snakes. This is where the frogs come in. We’d splash into the creek after frogs or chase them in the garden or woods. Frogs were my favorite. I took this picture of a tree frog one morning not too many years ago. It’s climbing the railing of our deck, maybe drawn by the smell of the coffee my husband and I were savoring in the sunshine. I love its feet—the delicate little cups that give it super powers to go anywhere.
by Donna Salli | Aug 10, 2020 | Blogs
I used to spend hours each day with my mother at her senior living apartment. That ended suddenly, one day in March, when I found a sign on the door saying the building was closed to visitors because of COVID. After five months now without a serious, face-to-face talk with anyone but my husband and our dog, I feel an increasing need to say something meaningful to somebody different. I’m an introvert, a poet, comfortable with small spaces. Given all that’s going on in the world, it feels safest inside these four walls. The pandemic has exposed some scary things—there’s a polarity, a mean-spiritedness around us. People choose camps: “I’m religious” . . . or “I’m scientific” . . . or “I’m liberal,” or “libertarian,” or “conservative.” We could parse it a hundred different ways. In today’s political climate, you have to pass a membership test—you have to choose an identity and wear it like a medal. Here’s my confession, this fifth month of COVID—in this climate, I’m a failure.
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