For the second installment of the bedtime series, Wayne Dodd’s “Of Rain and Air.” I left it on an evergreen tree bordering an RV park. Of Rain and Air by Wayne Dodd All day I have been closed up inside rooms, speaking of trivial matters. Now at last I have come out […]
MoreTouch Me by Stanley Kunitz Summer is late, my heart. Words plucked out of the air some forty years ago when I was wild with love and torn almost in two scatter like leaves this night of whistling wind and rain. It is my heart that’s late, it is my song that’s […]
MoreToday’s the last of the guest postings on Poem Elf. I’m not going to throw shade on all the other posters by suggesting I’ve saved the best for last—each entry has been a wonder to me—but I am mighty pleased to end this collaboration with a poem perfectly suited to these pandemic days and posted […]
MoreTwo seasons and at least one ocean separate today’s guest poster, Yen-Fang Heng of Australia, from my summery poem-elf perch in northern Michigan, and yet we might as well be sitting side-by-side for how much the poem she selected belongs to every moment of my day. I do love that little birdie she drew. […]
MoreI’ve called myself Poem Elf these past ten years but the fact is I am a Faux Elf, at least where anatomy is concerned. Elves are little folk. I am not. Cue today’s guest posters Isabelle and Ava of Maryland. They are not only elf-sized, they are elf-cute and e(l)fing adorable. The fact that they […]
MoreToday’s guest poster is my sister Ceci. Ceci is the oldest of eleven and I am number nine, so she has a history with the family that I know nothing about. For instance, I never knew a beloved book of my childhood, a book that seemed like it was part of the furniture, belonging to […]
MorePost Memorial Day weekend, post family barbeques, post trips to the boardwalk and camping ground, post online shopping for holiday sales—post fun, in other words— let’s ruminate on loss. It’s what we were supposed to be doing anyway. Yep, there goes my inner Debbie Downer. She rears her gray head often these pandemic times. […]
MoreAll the way from Prague, my youngest daughter Anne Marie spreads the Poem Elf spirit. As you can see, she loves her adopted city; as you can’t see and wouldn’t know, she also loves the word “romantic.” (See her commentary.) We have a running family joke about an awkward card she gave me as years […]
MoreIt’s graduation day here at Poem Elf! Our guest poster, Chicago writer and editor Bridget Gamble, chose Dean Young’s “Commencement” to celebrate. Unlike Bridget, I am not a lover of graduation speeches, having sat through more than my fair share of follow-your-dreams and follow-this-bit-of-whimsical-advice exhortations. But I do share her heartbreak for the millions of […]
MoreA young man. . . springtime. . . Rilke. . . . . doesn’t that sound hopeful, Romantic, free? Can you remember that time in your own life? That feeling of life-is-just-beginning and anything-can-happen? Can you remember, in the days before young people were cooped up and stalled out in their apartments, the joy of […]
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