Wonderful night photo by Stephen Locke, also the cover of my first novel (used with permission) When I was a little kid, the dark terrified me. At least, that's what I remember, but I think now I was just a night owl afraid of being alone, so I would pull myself up to standing in my crib and cry until someone came in. I didn't yet know how to befriend the dark I would come to love so much later on. When the dark encompassed the sky, I came alive, my little but fierce mind spinning on the axle...

Moxie smiling the day she arrived In the middle of the night I stepped out of bed, careful not to trip over the dog wedged against my side of the bed. Then I remembered: Moxie -- our very sweet, old, and somewhat weird border collie -- was dead When she moved in six years ago, Moxie acted as if we were always her forever home. We got her from dear friends, when we were considering a second dog to help our current one at the time -- the late, great Shay, our chocolate lab-Weimaraner mix --...

Since the astonishing Coleman Barks died Feb. 23rd, I've been trying to write about this premier translator of Rumi, the ever-relevant 13th century Sufi mystic poet Coleman brought us. I especially want to tell the story of how I met Coleman when he was helping, in extraordinary fashion, my friend John Willison. But I stopped myself from writing this celebration of poets and poetry because of all the stuff happening in our world lately. ICE showed up in my town to disappear some of our...