Emily Brisse

Dinner on a weekday means this: something basic, something hearty yet fast, like soup with a slice of unbuttered bread, because the moment I am up and at the kitchen counter--my face four feet from his face, my hands not tickling the length of his wiggly body--my almost-nine-month-old son is at my legs, standing and pulling and leaning against them, his faultless countenance a half bowl of instinct and need. He wants to be held. It is both beautiful and heart-wrenching, the way he grips after me. "Elliot," I say to him, reaching under the nests of his arms, lifting him like a bird before settling him on my hip, pecking his nose, calming him instantly. "Baby, you're fine. Haven't I told you before? In this northern savanna, there are no cheetahs." Of course, he thinks I'm hilarious. Which is one of the thousand reasons why I keep lifting him up, holding him close, stirring the soup with one hand, not buttering the bread. *** About a month ag...

Hi everybody, Hope you've been enjoying these cooler days, what ever that means to you in degrees. Autumn is my favorite season, and October my favorite month, which is lucky because it's when I was born, and hiking at St. Johns University with family on my birthday suited me quite well. Hello, blue blanket skies! Hello, quilt of leaves! I'm grateful for all the reasons this season gives to pull those I love closer. Things have been quiet on the blog these last few months, which I both expected and didn't, if that makes any sense. I've been a working mom for over two months now. Definitely a transition. We've found some semblance of "flow" to our days, though, which feels good, but it has come as a result of simplifying, doing less of some things, and giving in more to unplanned present moments. I still find myself longing to write, missing the particular energy and time that I need to create something fresh and weighted with these lovely little th...

Hush. The light is fading. Hush. The ducks are flying. Hush. The smoke is sifting. Hush. Hush. The moon is rising. Hush. The owl is hunting. Hush. The trees are creaking. Hush. Hush. The fall is coming. Hush. The fish are sleeping. Hush. The sky is stretching. Hush. Hush. The light is fading. Hush. The light is falling. Hush. The light is lightness. Hush.

Research papers in and graded, To Kill a Mockingbird spins on, bran muffins fresh from the oven, one more walk. Good days, brown and scented with the end of fall. The snow is coming, friends. Cocoa, a blanket on my belly, deep dark, and settling in:  ahead ahead ahead ahead ahead ahead ahead. Time for music.

Little child, this morning you woke me when the sky was still black, milky with low clouds and fog, and in the darkness I laid my hands over the places where you like to move.  I thought: soon, the sun. I thought: a new day. I thought: you are already so alive that it frightens and thrills me, you who I know but do not know, you who I feel but cannot see.  I have watched the seasons change all my life. I have anticipated the tightening, the clean coat of snow, the turning over. I have waited for signs, and they have come, every time, in the form of something I have words for.  But you, child, are hidden: I close my eyes and sense you behind a tree trunk, between a row of pumpkins, below the surface of a summer lake.  Your face is the peaks and valleys and plains of the earth, given new sounds, new names, that I've not yet learned how to say.

Sometimes, even though I know such phrases are cliche, I can't help myself from repeating over and over comments like, "Time flies by" and "Where has the summer gone" and "Each year, each year goes more quickly, I swear."  Perhaps these phrases are repeated so much simply because they are very, very true. In the spirit of that quickness, I thought I'd pop in here and offer up a few arguably sparse updates in lieu of my somewhat moseying style.   In case you missed my little announcement, I've had one particular little thing on my mind lately: a baby ! My husband and I are expecting our first child at the end of January. Although I'm sure bits and pieces of that journey will end up here, I plan to keep this blog mostly place-focused. I'm writing for a pregnancy blog , too, though, so if you like yourself some baby and are interested in a different kind of (more personal! more crazy?) writing, then head over here and chec...

Many thanks to Roadside Poetry's organizer, Paul Carney, and my mom, ever the intrepid photographer. Happy Thanksgiving, all!

Thanks to Chris Johnson, the Center for Servant Leadership at Gustavus, and the amazing and beautiful Prairie Oaks Institute in Belle Plaine for an incredible weekend: retreat, rejuvination, reflection, and old and new friends--"live encounters," every one. 

You were never much of a hunter. Pheasants, yes. Squirrels and chipmunks, I suppose, when you were younger. But you never came home from a weekend away with a buck in the bed of your truck, because you never had much interest in deer season opener and you owned a sedan. I imagine some people from other places can hardly conceive of a Midwestern man without a shotgun over his mantle, a closet full of blaze-orange jackets, a copy of  Field and Stream  next to the john. And yet when I think of you, I do see an outdoorsman. I see you paying attention to landscapes, to the clouds. I see you teaching me to love the world. ***  The remainder and revised version of this essay will appear in Literary Mama's summer 2014 edition.  Click on over to read the rest.