Windows (Again)

Confession: my cousin and I once sneaked downhill to peer into the windows of a neighbor's house to see what we could see. I had not read Harriet, the Spy, and he most certainly had not. But I had read Nancy Drew mysteries, so I fancied myself a detective of domestic life -- others' domestic life. The two of us wrote (maybe even only once) a neighborhood newspaper, featuring what we imagined might have happened in our grandparents' former house.

For me now, windows shine most without people like these stained glass panes in a chapel door, sunlight splashing their colors on a dark wall.

I don't need a story -- fictional or factual. The windows are enough.

What's Not to Love?

I

from above the narthex of All Saints' Chapel.

II

through the winding stairs' window on my way down

III

in Gracie's joy

Here Comes the Sun!

Sun sun sun, here it comes!

 And here's what it does.

Good day, sunshine! I feel good in a special way. I'm in love with a sunny day!

After Lessons and Carols

The nearest I ever come to a religious experience: the playful magic of light through stained glass.

It's enough for me.

More than enough.

Nightfall

Why turn on a lamp
when rising moon
illumines stained glass?

Light Show

In All Saints'
winter's late afternoon
sun slides
down stained glass
transforming
light into liquid.

Just Call Me Curmudgeon

Some students arrived mid-week and others dribbled in since.

The rest will storm the campus within ten days.

Meantime, I treasured this last tranquil Friday evening after my movie date with Boo.

NOLA Window

This afternoon, I walked into my living room after spending hours at my computer, reading and commenting on student work. I was struck by the light pouring through New Orleans, hanging in my front windows.

Although the stained glass panel is always there, in late afternoon, when the sun lowers across my front yard, light throws itself into the space of my furniture and books. It makes a kind of exploding silence that fills my house with New Orleans -- humidity, joy, red pepper, the smells of mildew and musk and sweet olive and beer and crab boil, wrought iron, good friends, former students, PJs coffee, Maple Street books, the streetcar clang , and the cool sweetness of Camellia Grill's coconut cream pie.

The window itself is a kind of lagniappe. Taking the Magazine Street art walk one weekend, I entered Diva, the gallery owned by a student's mother, a stained glass artist whose work I had never before been able to afford her work. But that afternoon, she advised me to put in a bid for the window. She said I had a good chance of winning since no else had entered the drawing. Later that day, she called to tell me the good news.

The window reminds me of Sally and of her daughter Morgan and of all those women I taught and all those friends I made (and lost) in The City That Care Forgot. The stained glass always throws me something.