I rise earlier and earlier in these years. I don't know why. Age, sadness, a willingness to epiphany. Something is opening in me, some new eye. I talk aless and listen more. Stories wash over me all day like tides. I walk through the bright wet streets and every moment a story comes to me, people hold them out to me like sweet children, and I hold them squirmimg and holy in my arms, and they enter my heart for awhile, and season and salt and sweeten that old engine and teach me humility and mercy, the only lessons that matter, the language I most wish to learn; a tongue best spoken wordlessly, with your hands clasped in prayer and your heart as naked as a baby.

--Brian Doyle
PORTLAND Magazine
Spring 2005