Cat vs. Fauci
This poem is at least seventy years old and probably older than that. It has absolutely nothing to do with coronavirus and yet I can’t read it any other way.
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Let’s be vines
Two poems from Holly Wren Spaulding’s new collection Familiars found their way to northern Michigan, courtesy of an elf sub, my daughter Lizzie. Spaulding hails from northern Michigan and returns there each summer to teach, so it seemed a good spot, even if the pictures don’t exactly replicate the settings in each poem. (You […]
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Charlie, this bird’s for you
After the year we’ve had—and I’m talking about 2021—any poem that offers light in darkness is a welcome guest in my head. But this one is just beyond. So beautiful, so un-treacly, so begging to be read out loud and memorized, so seasonally and emotionally timely.
MoreCountdown 2020, last 24 hours: Old wisdom for a new year
We’ve nearly reached the end, folks. The last day of our terrible no-good very bad year. To close out this series, I’ve selected a gentle poem, May Sarton’s “House of Gathering.” It’s like a deep cleansing breath. I taped it to a bench in a complex where my friend Sister Pat, 80 and going strong, […]
More2020 Countdown, day two: Take me to the river
On the second to last day of this sad and strange year, we turn to yet another poet who died in 2020. I left Lisel Mueller ‘s “Bedtime Story” on the banks of the Rouge River in suburban Michigan. Bedtime Story by Lisel Mueller The moon lies on the river like a […]
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2020 Countdown, day 4: Remember me? says the earth
Anyone still here? The countdown series is winding down—only four more days. The poems will be dark for the next seventy-two hours but I promise to close out 2020 on a positive note. Today we look at the forgotten sister of the Family Annus Horribilis, climate change. Just as ugly as her siblings but […]
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