This poem lay dormant for months, seeded in the waning days of autumn, when I wrote Anthem. Finally, spring is here with "A shout of triumph / An anthem of joy." Tight, verdant buds dot the naked limbs laid bare in winter, and a chartreuse film covers the ground greened in new grass raised from … Continue reading Spring (Finally)
Author: K. Ashby
I write essays, poetry, short fiction, and novels.
What’s So Great About Wuthering Heights?
I first read Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights when I was eighteen, more than two decades ago. And, until recently, I’ve never wanted to revisit it. However, when my two eldest children were assigned the novel for school, I began to wonder if a second reading might change my opinion.
Holy Week: Hope and Resurrection
How does the hard and frigid soil, packed from winter's brutal toil, think that spring will ever show-- unfurl above, thread below? What tiny hope stirs in the deep to resurrection's vigil keep? What life beneath is waiting there-- renewal's meat, drink, and air? It's Adam's dust, from Adam shaken, soil to flesh, the flesh … Continue reading Holy Week: Hope and Resurrection
Holy Week: Perfect Love
XV. What cracks the husk so that hope pushes its green head up to the light, and frail threads wend downward to mine the rich dark decay of yesterday's life? K. Ashby Previously: Holy Week: Nature Tells the Truth
Holy Week: Nature Tells The Truth
Maybe you've shoveled compost into your garden beds, mixing the dark organic matter that some gardeners call "black gold" into your native soil. Or, maybe you've walked into the woods and inhaled the moist, verdant fragrance of humus, that soft, springy top layer of the forest floor. What does that fresh, earthy fragrance have in … Continue reading Holy Week: Nature Tells The Truth
On the Way Home
We drove past the Reservoir on the way home. The day is grim winter gray punctuated by bare trees and piles of wet lifeless leaves. It is sprinkling. The temperature is cool enough for light layers and warm enough to feel muggy. This is not a day to delight in nature. This is a day … Continue reading On the Way Home
Jacksie & Zelda
A few weeks ago, I sat with my youngest daughter in a doctor's waiting room. She had forgotten to bring a book and was bored. Very bored, and very restless. I pulled a pen and notebook from my purse and suggested we write a story together. We made it through the opening scene before we … Continue reading Jacksie & Zelda
This I Know
XVI. This I Know Sometimes devastation pummels from a charcoal sky at noon, but a dark sky doesn't change day to night. Night will only come when earth turns her face from sun. Proverbs 3:5-16, Joshua 23:14 K. Ashby
Silent Shout
XV. Anyone can see those pale curves were molded by a master. No amount of dust, no darkened corner can hide the same truth told by the sun as it sinks into lavender mountains-- rustling, fragrant trees hug glinting streams, uncurling ferns, a dragonfly wing-- the creation reveals its creator with a silent shout. K. … Continue reading Silent Shout
Anthem
XIV. When the air chills and the light dims, Autumn flames, then falls-- All that glory ground into the winter wet earth With other dead things-- Because in winter Life lies beneath, devouring death, Transforming all the rot and worthless things To cradle life, holding it in trust Until warmth and light return And the … Continue reading Anthem
In the Quiet 