use of metaphor

Sometimes I remind myself of the Don Quixote of our yard. He’s a lunatic robin doing valiant battle through this long and glorious spring. I can’t believe he hasn’t killed himself yet. When morning is only a soft charcoal suggestion, he begins flying into the first window in which his reflection becomes visible, fighting off a ubiquitous rival in his territory. He keeps at it, […]

I hope the deer was the last thing Cory saw, not the pickup truck careening toward him, and I hope his eyes were wide and soft with pleasure. We’re here to teach our children and grandchildren, I know that. But sometimes we see things through their eyes and everything changes. Every November for ten days […]

IN SEASON I need bullets, he said, only one left in the chamber, and headed toward the house when by chance I spotted it in the back field, near the woods that drop down to Rush Run, the creek like a vein through our farm, and shouted to him, though a shadow hid whether […]

“To a poet nothing can be lost.” Samuel Johnson Something happened a few days ago that got me thinking about depicting emotion when I write, and how often I find my way to it through metaphor. Winter had reasserted itself, so Hannah’s forest hike was on icy sloggy mud that sucked at boots and […]