Duggan & Singer — August 2026

George H.S. Singer and Teresa Duggan traded art and words. Teresa shared this image, titled “Woods Buddha,” with George:

In response, George wrote this poem:

Old Oak, Bodhisattva 

The crew sprawls on the driveway, hardhats
for pillows, in the last of the tree shade. They
carried their siesta with them across from Tijuana

to give them stamina to work until first starlight
bringing down the last of our century old oak.
Landmark and shelter it had kept us

under its canopy until its new leaves didn’t open
at its distant edges, dying month by month inward
to the core until done with its ring by ring autobiography.

One man commands because he risks the most
dangling high up in a web of knotted ropes
he wields a chainsaw and finds the tree’s seams.  

He ropes each chunk of branch for the men on the ground
to lower, haul, and load into the grinder that howls 
the ancient song of dust to dust. Balanced on the massive

branches he undoes a century of implacable growth, 
the genius of the oak— to build upward and outward across the low sky,
as if massive stone, infused with mind climbed to gain

a portion of the sun’s splendor.
Now the undoing—by noon– a skeleton, by three 
–a trunk, by six– a stump.

Zen Buddhists believe the soul needs a week
to give up the body and move on –so it should be visited
and blessed those days.

By night the men are paid and gone. The house
unbuffered now is colder in the wind and we
vacuum sawdust blown under the doors. 

Our displaced grey squirrels, bluejays,  
and the longtime barn owl vanish. On the periphery
our eyes keep noting absence—Not here. 

* * * * *

George shared this poem with Teresa:

Befriending the Night 

Father doesn’t scowl, 
doesn’t rub his chest, 
he doesn’t hurry into the house
without a word 
to find his heart pills.
He doesn’t leave me 
alone this time. 

Instead, we lean in close 
over a celestial map
as he touches the printed stars 
with one hand and aims 
a flashlight’s beam
into the glittering night
connecting the dots 
tracing ancient imaginings—
Orion the Hunter 
Lepus the wolf 
the Big Dipper like the ladle
mother uses for soup.

He’s gotten a reprieve 
from the surgeons
who put him in a bathtub 
full of ice to slow his heartbeat
as they sawed off ribs
to avail his heart for repair. 

He returned pale and skeletal
with a scar from neck to navel
bedbound for weeks.
At six, I thought bad men
had hurt him and hidden him away.

But he came back to give both
of us the night sky. 

In response, Teresa made this image, titled “True North”: