Authors /
Paul Willis
Paul Willis’s most recent book is Somewhere to Follow (Slant). He is a professor of English at Westmont College.
Mourning Dove
Five days after my father died, I passed a brown mourning dove perched atop a grade-school fence....
In the Church of Sant’Andrea, Orvieto
Twelve stone steps rise to the pulpit, wrapping around a granite column beside a crooked banister. On the column are ragged remains ...
Consider Now
(Quercus agrifolia)
Old live oak, your hands catch sun and make it green....
Upper Tyee Lake
Little lake in the middle of May, you are still frozen white except for a sleeve of water...
Two Boulders
On Panther Creek in the Sierra,
I saw a boulder splashed
with pale green crustose lichen,
merged and matted all across its granite sides,...
Santa Barbara chiaroscuro
Morning fog—such a blessing in this town of too much sun.
My wife doesn’t think so, being from the Sierra foothills,...
COVID classroom, 2020
Just after eight on a warm October morning,
under a white canopy, the sun comes smoking
through the redwoods into the eyes and paisley
mask of a young woman front-and-center....
Thy necessity
Our friend Greg was two weeks shy
of his lingering end when he called to say
he was so sorry we had lost our golden retriever.
You see, he had lost a retriever himself...
Free Newsletters
From theological reflections to breaking religion news to the latest books, the Christian Century's newsletters have you covered.
Catching a ride, 1975
When the Colonel from Monterey picked me up
at a gas station in Rock Springs, Wyoming,
he said it was my short sleeves—no tracks to hide....
Snow plant
(Sarcodes sanguinea)
O snow plant, growing right and sudden
in the middle of the trail,...
Twinflower
(Linnaea borealis)
Who would guess, with your pair
of downcast, blousy blossoms
so close to your matted leaves,
that you are actually a shrub?...
After the rain
When sourgrass bends sweet and heavy over the path and even the sumac fawns at my feet,when little streams run large and muddyunder the light of poison oak,...