A few weeks ago in a post on Parrot and Olivier in America, I mentioned my childhood friend Pippi from Australia. Calling her up from memory prompted me to track her down on Facebook. Say what you will about the time-wasting, social-chastening, death-hastening, life-sucking, mind-flucking (not a much of a cusser here) nature of Facebook, […]
MoreJust wanted to share a collage my daughter made using a picture she had taken for her photography class and a paraphrase of a favorite passage of mine. The paraphrase is taken from Life of the Beloved, by Henri J. M. Nouwen, a Catholic priest who died in 1996. Nouwen wrote the book following a […]
MoreFear by Grace Paley I am afraid of nature because of nature I am mortal – my children and my grandchildren are also mortal – I lived in the city for forty years in this way I escaped fear Like a character in an old TV sitcom who’s got an engagement ring in his […]
MoreSpotlight on another gift today, one that my mother gave me a few months ago, a gift that was unconnected to any celebration. How wonderful is that! To my list of what kind of gifts are best, add the following: a gift given for no reason other than the giver thought the recipient would really […]
MoreA dear friend gave me this elf for my birthday. Nothing better than a gift you didn’t know you wanted, a gift that makes you feel that someone has studied you, understood you and desired to please you. I’m delighted with this felted fellow! I see hours of amusement ahead with his pose-able body and […]
MoreLove Is Not All by Edna St. Vincent Millay Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain; Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink And rise and sink and rise and sink again; Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath, Nor […]
MoreAs a rule, Poem Elf works in secret, but today I made an exception. In broad daylight I handed the Walt Whitman election poem to campaigners outside my local precinct. I was nervous, but there was no need to be. I had expected more crowds and more last-minute campaigning, but outside the high […]
MoreExpressing gratitude we risk platitudes and cliché, but I can’t help myself on this election day. Voting is a marvelous and wondrous event! Divisions and partisanship have filled our airwaves, mailboxes, answering machines and possibly our thoughts for months now and I’m wondering, couldn’t we all just hold hands for one minute and sing a […]
MorePoem Elf posts seem to be a tad morbid lately. Perhaps I’m adjusting to the seasonal change or reacting to Halloween decorations or, most likely, working out just-under-the-surface sadness from the passing of two fathers in one year. Whatever the reason, now that I’m aware of the death thread, I can snip it. But one […]
MoreSpring and Fall to a young child by Gerald Manley Hopkins MÁRGARÉT, áre you gríeving Over Goldengrove unleaving? Leáves, líke the things of man, you With your fresh thoughts care for, can you? Áh! ás the heart grows older 5 It will come to such sights colder By and by, nor spare a sigh Though worlds […]
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