Radiator by Connie Wanek from Bonfire Mittens are drying on the radiator, boots nearby, one on its side. Like some monstrous segmented insect the radiator elongates under the window. Or it is a beast with many shoulders domesticated in the Ice Age. How many years it takes to move from room to room! Some cage…
The Cure at Troy (excerpt) Seamus Heaney Human beings suffer. They torture one another. They get hurt and get hard. No poem or play or song Can fully right a wrong Inflicted and endured. History says, Don’t hope On this side of the grave, But then, once in a lifetime The longed-for tidal wave Of…
Dusting by Marilyn Nelson from Magnificat Thank you for these tiny particles of ocean salt, pearl-necklace viruses, winged protozoans: for the infinite, intricate shapes of submicroscopic living things. For algae spores and fungus spores, bonded by vital mutual genetic cooperation, spreading their inseparable lives from equator to pole. My hand, my arm, make sweeping circles….
Recently I cleared out my piles on the credenza in my study. I found lots of scraps of paper noting ideas to blog about. Here, then, are “the ones that got away.” All of these blog-fish are pretty small, but some are beautifully striped. Ideas 1) Pop as “great connector” 2) Soil & Soul (poem…
Yes by Tess Gallagher from Moon Crossing River Now we are like that flat cone of sand in the garden of the Silver Pavilion in Kyoto designed to appear only in moonlight. Do you want me to mourn? Do you want me to wear black? Or like moonlight on whitest sand to use your dark,…
To view this video log, click on “full story” below. This video log is now posted on You Tube and more will be coming, too.
Gathering Leaves in Grade School by Judith Harris from The Literary Review, Fall 2008 They were smooth ovals, and some the shade of potatoes– some had been moth-eaten or spotted, the maples were starched, and crackled like campfire. We put them under tracing paper and rubbed our crayons over them, X-raying the spread of their…
A Good List (Homage to Lorenz Hart) Brad Leithauser Curves and Angles Some nights, can’t sleep, I draw up a list, Of everything I’ve never done wrong. To look at me now, you might insist My list could hardly be long, But I’ve stolen no gnomes from my neighbor’s yard, Nor struck his dog, backing…
blessing the boats (at St. Mary’s) by Lucille Clifton Quilting: Poems 1987-1990 may the tide that is entering even now the lip of our understanding carry you out beyond the face of fear may you kiss the wind then turn from it certain that it will love your back may you open your eyes to…
Sparrows by Christopher Buckley from Dust Light, Leaves Like the poor, they are with us always . . . what they lack in beauty is theirs in good cheer—tails like pump handles lifting them first among songsters, chiding city light or roadside to evening’s praise. Gristmills, hardy gleaners, but for them the weeds and thorns…