More on: destruction

That was terrorism,
she says. I know evil.

. . . I love her and how do we

explain her?

Why would you attack a beautiful work of art or building? In most cases, the clue is an urge to purify—a physical and spiritual decluttering beyond Marie Kondo’s wildest dreams.

OUTSIDE A FINE New Orleans restaurant in the early fifties, a married man asks an unattached woman, “Have you ever driven south of here?” and she says, “South of here, I didn’t know there was any south of here. Does it just go on and on?” Then, without agreeing upon their intentions, the two take off—for…

for Robin Needham, killed in the 2004 Christmas tsunami Something shuddered in the un- fathomable dark, and a wave shouldered forth like an eighteen wheeler skidding sideways into oncoming traffic—a wave, beautiful as snow on a navy sleeve inhering by the power of a word, the word that shuddered in each dark cell of the…

A merciless night here for the trees. At dawn: stripped bushes, ————————–strewn branches. Surveying the scatter for the unbroken, I come up with crows. It’s random on the face of it, this ruthlessness, ——————————————this rampage— like most of the world’s violence, much of its love. Still, after long safety, who can resist ———————————a good dies…