WATERMARK

a poet’s notebook

Established 02004

managing illness

August 14, 2026

IT COULD BE WORSE

We have encountered a bit of an obstacle, the kind that line up on the road of aging. And as we often do on that road, we keep going, though perhaps not as quickly nor as gymnastically as we did on the younger roads. Continue reading

Aging, Digital Collage, illness, Personal

aging, illness, managing illness
January 29, 2008

Some Suggestions

Those look like mystery tracks, don't they? Those are Lucy's front paws and nose, as she reached up to eat the snow. I was there, so I could read them. The mystery tracks of this illness are not, apparently, so easily deciphered. There they are, for all to see — but what made them? This… Continue reading

Managing

“chronic fatigue”, CFIDS, CFS, chronic illness, handicapped parking permit, M.E., managing illness, meals on wheels

Ancestral (Artificial )Intelligence

I do not use AI to write. For me, writing is how I think, and I prefer to do it myself. If/when I post anything here that I suspect or know to be AI generated, I will tell you.

I have changed this from Artificial to Ancestral, after Abi Awomosu @ Substack. This medium was made with human history, human thought. All of it, bright and dark. It is ancestral.

Poems

Please do not assume that I am the speaker/ subject of my poems.

In these times of creative nonfiction and fictionalized memoirs, I think of the poem itself as true fiction: it is most likely not factual, but it must be true.

It is likely to be — it is best if it is — a truth I did not know before I wrote, and may not understand even then.

A poem is my way of discovering (dis-covering) what I feel; sometimes, what I think — but it is not necessarily biographical.

managing illness

IT COULD BE WORSE

Some Suggestions