Small courtyard in Flanders — Albert Baertsoen (1866–1922) — public domain walking these narrow streets of cobblestone testimony I should...

why wait for opportunity to knock when you know it has neither hand nor finger why wait for fate to find you when you know it’s blind...

photo by author © midnight and to the north a dogged sun still burns loath to shed her blazing harness and to the south a pale and...

Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1526/1530–1569) Children's Games (detail) - public domain those were the days of single a single car a single...

Mother and Child Sleeping — Eugène Carrière (1849–1906) tonight I’ll seek no sleep because to lie with you is dream enough as your...

photo by author © spent a lifetime climbing summits taking risks the mountain unforgiving yet failed to touch the stars but that’s...

Játszó gyermekek — Children playing - Árpád Cserépy (1859–1907) — public domain “TRULY! — TROLLA! — TROLLO!” I watch my children play...

forgive me but these photographs of earlier days only capture a passing reality as day by day I lived with you and never noticed change...

For most boys, there comes a time when they look up to their fathers and ask “can I try”, or “will you teach me?” — to fix that engine,...

There once was a man who collected clocks — tall and solid grandfather clocks; short and plump grandmother clocks; stylish wall and...

It all happened a long time ago, and I have no idea if the man is still alive today, but just to be safe and for the sake of privacy,...

The farmhouse I pass by the side of this godforsaken mountain road is a ruin, a shell, long abandoned, empty of humanity. Still, you’re...

Watching my father and his men ply their craft, I figured I knew a thing or two about dressing stones. But there’s ‘watching’, and then...

In a yard dedicated to the crafting of stone, they stood out like two sore thumbs, totally incongruous, the first one thin and stunted in...

I must’ve been about eight when I popped the fateful question “Mommy? Are we rich?” My mother turned from the stove, wooden spoon in...

Unlike my native Flemish, in which you’re simply called a tombstone maker, the English language offers two grand words to describe my...

Once a week, on Friday mornings, all of us boys at the Catholic primary school would troop down from our first-floor classrooms, one...

To this day, whatever part of the world I’m in, I still can’t walk past a graveyard without some pause, without at least a furtive glance...

Growing up, every child gets to hear these stories, of cats pouncing on mice, dogs chasing cats, then comes the wolf, and so on. Stories...

So here I go, a fool's worth of words, let's see if the void persists.