Prodigal Poet: An Ecclectic Offering on God, Shakespeare, and the Beatles

The Christmas season is my very favorite time of year -- the lights, the lush garlands and trees, the great food, and more cheerful people. I love everything about it and could probably live in a Christmas environment for the majority of the year, especially if there is snow. I know most people enjoy snow on Christmas, but I enjoy it ALL the time. I can never get enough of it, perhaps with the exception of driving to the UP of Michigan in a blizzard in the dark. There is something about the preparation and anticipation of this season that comforts me and makes me feel incredibly joyful, forgetting some of my usual stress and worry. It is the waiting for Christmas that I enjoy, much more than I do the actual day. Once the actual day arrives I start to feel the blues tapping on my door, fully settling in with a bowl of popcorn and their feet on the coffee table the next day. For some reason, this year, I am feeling the blues arrogantly inching toward my doorstep a little earl...

I was out taking a walk earlier this evening with our dog, Desmond -- our nightly ritual poop-patrol stroll. It had been lightly raining most of the evening and during our walk I could feel it gently descending upon my ponytail and trenchcoat. I noticed the same thing that I always notice when I am outside after it has been raining: worms. Oodles of worms were scattered across the sidewalks -- shimmying over cement to find new resting places after having had their previous ones flooded. I once wrote a poem that was inspired by this, titled "Earth Drowning." The prologue I wrote for it was this: "Worm corpses scatter across sidewalks / Like tenets evicted from earth-carved homes." This phenomenon always saddens me. I have always, since I was very young, had an unusual infatuation with worms. I used to go worm-hunting at least once a week, turning over rocks in our backyard, especially near the garden, searching for my squishy, slimey treasures, with the hopes ...