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What Remains of a Sunny Day
I never get any exercise in the woods. Every six seconds, I have to stop and examine something. Six deer, one terrapin, an abundance of blooming cutleaf toothwort. I ask you, who could rush through that? Especially when every uphill stretch wants to put me in the ground.
The old flower garden is blooming among a wreck of wild raspberry and a ( Read more... ) -
Dying for Spring
Tomorrow, no today, since it's after midnight, will be a spring day. And I'm glad of it. No matter what you fear, a true spring day can fix it. A day where you breathe fresh air and eat sunshine is always a good day. Hasn't it felt like spring would never come? My breath of spring never bloomed, stilted by the seesaw of early warm weather and late ( Read more... ) -
(Untitled)
Anne Waters,
December 21, 1862
Dreamed I had my baby
back,
Held her in a blanket
before the fire
and rubbed her
arms and legs
until she moved again,
and then began to cry.
I was suddenly
filled up,
like something solid
had entered my body,
or an arm lost long ago
had returned
to swell the empty sleeve and
drive away the phantom pain.
We ( Read more... ) -
The World That Is
Maybe the mundane matters. To someone, someday. Spring singing several days ago by very small birds, small enough to be hummingbirds but with slow wings. I couldn't see them well, way high in my tallest trees. Don't remember anything so small. Daffodils up in many places, several inches. Now ice and rain. A light cover on the trees, ( Read more... ) -
No Poetry Near Me, None at All
All finite things reveal infinitude:
The mountain with its singular bright shade
Like the blue shine on freshly frozen snow,
The after-light upon ice-burdened pines;
Odor of basswood on a mountain-slope,
A scent beloved of bees;
Silence of water above a sunken tree :
The pure serene of memory in one man, --
A ripple widening from a single stone
Winding ( Read more... ) -
Shut the Door
THE SOUL selects her own society,
Then shuts the door;
On her divine majority
Obtrude no more.
Unmoved, she notes the chariot’s pausing
At her low gate;
Unmoved, an emperor is kneeling
Upon her mat.
I’ve known her from an ample nation
Choose one;
Then close the valves of her attention
Like stone.
( Read more... ) -
One Month
You try and hold on to the moment
But time won't let you stay
But for every step you take
You lose something on the way
You can't look forward to tomorrow
And still hold on to yesterday
Oh, I hope that you can hear me
When I'm saying.
Oh, you're always in my heart
And you're often on my mind
I will never let it die
Just as long as I'm alive.
( Read more... ) -
To the Heart
Authors you read for fun can surprise you. In your mind, you put them in their place, somewhere reserved for this or that, but more often it's your mind that has limited them. I was reading Dorothy Sayers this morning. A strictly for fun author for me but someone who was plainly better educated than I am. She loved writing and words so why was ( Read more... ) -
(Untitled)
Operation Baby Bird is over. -
Pilgrimage
I have a problem with writing. I know that. I can't identify exactly what the cause of it is, but one of the frustrating symptoms is that it takes me forever to go from ideas to words. This is a major liability in my profession and I need to fix it.
Last week, I went to a writing/editing workshop in Washington, DC at the Thurgood Marshall ( Read more... )