A 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 […]
MoreThe week before Halloween seems the right time to share an image that’s haunted me since I first saw it a few years ago. “Caroline” is a mixed media photograph created by my old friend Trish Rawlings, an artist and writer living in Baltimore. The photograph is taken from a series called Revenant, meaning “one […]
MoreThe Ticket by Anne Porter On the night table Beside my bed I keep a small Blue ticket – One day I found it In my pocket-book I don’t know how It got there – I don’t know What it’s for – On one side There’s a number 98833 And INDIANA TICKET COMPANY – And […]
MoreExperienced bloggers advise newbies, “Post early and often.” Doggone it, I just can’t seem to do that. Notwithstanding the fact that I don’t think clearly before 10 a.m., I also couldn’t post one of my long poetry responses every single day. I’d burn out in a month and so would my readers. But I do […]
MoreI Have News for You by Tony Hoagland There are people who do not see a broken playground swing as a symbol of ruined childhood and there are people who don’t interpret the behavior of a fly in a motel room as a mocking representation of their thought process. There are people who don’t walk […]
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