Issue 528 | The Sun Magazine

December 2019

Readers Write

Interruptions

A detour in Samoa, an encounter in a bar, a snowfall in Colorado

By Our Readers
One Nation, Indivisible

December 2019

Featuring Bill McKibben, M.C. Richards, Helena Norberg-Hodge, and more.

The Dog-Eared Page

To be of use

The people I love the best / jump into work headfirst / without dallying in the shallows / and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.

By Marge Piercy
Quotations

Sunbeams

Every heart is the other heart. Every soul is the other soul. Every face is the other face. The individual is the one illusion.

Marguerite Young, Miss MacIntosh, My Darling

The Sun Interview

The World We Still Have

Barry Lopez On Restoring Our Lost Intimacy With Nature

One of the reasons we’re lonely . . . is that we’ve cut ourselves off from the nonhuman world, and have called this “progress.”

By Fred Bahnson
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

In Pieces

Rabbi Nachman had a special dish which he used for the Sabbath loaves. It had belonged to his own master, Rabbi Lev of Grenoble, and it occupied a prominent place in his home.

By David Slabotsky
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

Pistol In A Drawer

Ever since I first slipped it into my duffel bag those many years ago, I have guarded the pistol jealously, like a miser his coin. The more cause someone might have to take the pistol from me, the more care I have taken to conceal it.

By Charlie Geer
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

Next Of Kin

My friend Gina and I have a pact: Should either of us die unexpectedly, the other will retrieve the shoebox of sex toys hidden in the deceased’s closet.

By Jennifer Bowen Hicks
Fiction

Stupid Zebra

The father looked to the refs, the zebras in their black-and-white-striped shirts, but there was no hand in the air, no signal at all that a penalty would be called.

By Bradley Babendir
Poetry

Canoe

When I was young, years ago, canoeing on the green / Green River, with my young first husband, / I wriggled out of my shorts, eased over the lip / of our little boat, and became eel-woman, / naked and glistening, borne along in the current.

By Alison Luterman
Poetry

Last Requests

I want to be excused, at least this once, / from being me, and be instead someone / who sees daily things as miracles

By Owen McLeod