Author Archives: Roger Gosden
Bertie’s Latest Poem
The first time we met Bertie she was sitting behind bottles of apple butter and pickled vegetables laid out on a wooden table in the green outside Sharp’s Store in West Virginia. The bottles were lined up in serried ranks, … Continue reading
Seventeen Year Itch
Back in 1996, Bill Clinton was still in his first term of office, Charles and Diana agreed to divorce, the Unabomber was apprehended, and Ella Fitzgerald died. That year I hadn’t even dreamed of moving permanently to North America: I … Continue reading
Posted in Animalia
Tagged Bible, birds, cicada, Death, eggs, locust, mast seeding, naturalist, Richmond, science
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The Good, the Bad, and the Cannibals
The cannibal hungrily carved muscle from the girl’s body; then he broke “Jane’s” skull open to scoop out brain matter. But it was neither in New Guinea nor in the Amazon jungle that her corpse was plundered; it happened in … Continue reading
Drive, Text, and Let Die
A commuter in the Monday morning gridlock on the Washington beltway might well daydream about trips on open roads – the feeling of freedom and joie de vivre, and the expectation of a happy arrival at the end of a … Continue reading
Bee Intelligent
I remember a biology lesson when our schoolteacher laid out a row of pickled brains. The lids of some jars were leaking formaldehyde vapor into the classroom, an irritating odor that I had to get used to after I started … Continue reading
Roger musing about Peace with Nature 