The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop, The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one.

"When the heart stops oozing blood

Black women are the tall trees that remain standing in a forest after a fire. They carry themselves like royal oak trees; mighty. untouchable. From below, you can see our tight spirals and our limbs stretching. We have been hurt; our sweet sap coughing out of our mouths and oozing down from our eyes. They cut off our sprouting gardens on our heads. We are trampled down in deforestation?What about the little trees watching our mothers and fathers fall from grace? Is America listening? Why have you lied?

If one would praise the Almighty, one must then revel in His works, and take them whole, adore their very grossness, savor the oozing quiddity of that slime of which He seems to be inordinately fond. Love is not nice. God's love assuredly is not; and human love, its copy, must not presume to be so.

Christmas crept into Pine Cove like a creeping Christmas thing: dragging garland, ribbon, and sleigh bells, oozing eggnog, reeking of pine, and threatening festive doom like a cold sore under the mistletoe.