The heavy-set writer in the horn-rimmed glasses teamed up on television with Gene Siskel to create a format for criticism that proved enormously appealing in its simplicity: uncomplicated reviews that were both intelligent and accessible and didn’t talk down to ordinary movie fans. …
"So on this day of reflection I say again, thank you for going on this journey with me. I’ll see you at the movies." Ebert wrote Tuesday on his blog. …
Fans admired his courage, but Ebert told The Associated Press that bravery had "little to do with it."
"You play the cards you’re dealt," Ebert wrote in an email in January 2011. "What’s your choice? I have no pain. I enjoy life, and why should I complain?" …
"I was perfectly content before I was born, and I think of death as the same state," he wrote. "I am grateful for the gifts of intelligence, love, wonder and laughter. You can’t say it wasn’t interesting."
Saw you online
the other day.
Didn’t IM —
I am not
the chatty type.
Like seeing you
across a room
without waving.
It’s just nice
to know you’re there. mjh
Before dawn
I sit and wait
pen in hand.
I look across
this blank page
stretching forever.
Where are you?
I watch and wait
and look up to see you
at the edge of the woods
you emerge
and walk toward me
walking on water
toward me
that serene calm face
looking through me
at the world.
Am I your mirror? mjh
The poet stands before a cage of birds,
contemplating his next words.
He snatches up a finch
and deftly dips its feet in ink,
stamping glyphs across the page.
All the while, the bird sings softly,
adding a common tone
to this pedestrian poem.
Returning the finch to its pen,
the poet mutters,
"I should have used a wren." mjh
It is so nice of you
to ask about my poetry.
“Anything new?”
Only seeds
on fallow ground
my personal drought,
I reply dryly
through cracked lips,
my laugh the crunch
of leaves & snap of twigs.
In my hands this paper
browns and curls,
the pen melts,
and in flame
I remember
some seeds need fire
some brush must burn
before we grow. mjh
11/2/2003
"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds." — Sam Adams
