File under Best Laid Plans. Nearly two years ago I resolved (publicly, unfortunately) to use up my stash of poems by posting several a week. Of course they’re still here. They’ve even grown in number. All the crinkled slips of paper stuffed in my Poem Elf bag like old underwear—I can’t bear to throw them […]
MoreTo the mountain of tributes to the great Mary Oliver, I add this little pebble. In a world with so many hysterical people running loose, shouting and fighting and festering outrage, I miss her. Or I miss the idea of her, the poet walking along the shore in her barn jacket, quiet and […]
MoreThe Sun by Judah Al-Harizi Look: the sun has spread its wings over the earth to dispel the darkness. Like a great tree, with its roots in heaven, and its branches reaching down to the earth. Wouldn’t it be nice to wake up to headline like this: SUN DISPELS […]
MoreSometimes, the Field by Holly Wren Spaulding Sometimes I bring my hunger to the field. I sidestep the soft mounds, the ants at their labor, their back and forth with grains of sand. I wait in the milkweed and withering thistle, all of it turning and rustling in the wind. I mean […]
MoreBarter by Sara Teasdale Life has loveliness to sell, All beautiful and splendid things, Blue waves whitened on a cliff, Soaring fire that sways and sings, And children’s faces looking up Holding wonder like a cup. Life has loveliness to sell, Music like a curve of gold, Scent of pine trees in […]
MoreMarch 1912 –Postcard, en route westward by Natasha Trethewey At last we are near breaking the season, shedding our coats, the gray husk of winter. Each tree trembles with new leaves, tiny blossoms, the flashy dress of […]
MoreThis Morning by Javier Galvez This morning The sun broke my window and came in laughing Along the same path: Gift by Czeslaw Milosz A day so happy. Fog lifted early, I worked in the garden. Hummingbirds were stopping over honeysuckle flowers. There was no thing on earth […]
MoreContinuing with my previous post, here’s three more poems I left behind on a recent trip to the Porcupine Mountains in Michigan’s beautiful Upper Peninsula. Louise Gluck’s riveting “Gretel in Darkness” is a favorite poem of mine and I couldn’t resist putting it in these enchanted woods. Gluck imagines Gretel years after she has pushed […]
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