The kettle-corn maker stands outside the Meeting House. I catch a glimpse of vendors inside. People pour in and out. We pass through the Welcome sign to the Village Center and continue up the path toward the Village Green. Nothing there. The famous Vermont Country Fair is inside […]
The days between Dad’s death and his funeral passed with a frantic urgency. There Mom and I were, securing his plot, arranging his wake, purchasing his coffin. We held back the grief as we attended to the business of saying goodbye. I still needed to write his eulogy. […]
Tightness in my throat. Remembering Mrs. Zengo’s confused disappointment. How hurt those brown eyes in that wrinkly forehead that creased with her frown. How sorry I felt—and unforgiven—until she realized I brought in an egg for another student’s recipe. I had overheard their conversation and mistakenly thought I […]
Princes and Kings call themselves “orphans, widowers, beggars,” to get themselves rooted in the dirt” Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching: A Book about the Way and the Power of the Way, Ursula K Le Guin, pg. 164 We were so dug in, we thought. Look how our shared […]
I read Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I shuddered when Phaedrus articulated his theory of “quality,” only to experience a breakdown when he realizes that he simply rediscovered Laoxi’s insight–codified in the Tao Te Ching some 500 years before the birth of Christ: The […]
Husband, Father, Writer, Teacher. American Haijin. Because Haikai matters!
Frank J. Tassone 