Stepping stones
Editor’s Note: We at Topology are currently on our annual publishing break. In the meantime, enjoy this bonus essay on the July theme of…
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A day more beautiful
Photo: Sorbie Farm, Salem, OH, Hanna Family Archives (circa 1958) It was a day, her uncle said, more beautiful than it had any right…
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A stake in the ground
There is a stake in the ground just below the gully of willow trees, above the creek, in the back field of our farm…
Read MoreBiscuit World
We stop at Biscuit World on the way home from my father’s funeral. Leave the flatlands of North Carolina, cross the border into the…
Read MoreForagers
Chasing crickets through alpine meadows, my sisters and I stumble over bones sprawled in a grove of blackberry vines. Alone. The ants the flies…
Read MoreDividing a dying woman’s land
Her eyes blur the fields. She shrinks to a seed, forgets to speak, forgets to say how footprints till the layers of her brain,…
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Politics and the lies we tell about grief
When we do not take grief seriously—our own and another’s—but merely cover its wounds with a garish fairy tale of winking soldiers cheering from…
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Orange silk
A splash of brilliant orange between many layers. A green dress, moth-eaten, in which she had once danced with her uniformed father amidst the…
Read MoreFuneral for Jesus
Children gathered around the flowered bier and sang dirges. Burst, his mother cried to the silent God who called her to this. Hidden women…
Read MoreThis Will Be the Last Time
the cat lies on my lap while my father is still alive. No use forgiving rock for being rock or white clouds always passing…
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