Video: Wendell Berry reads his poem “The Peace of Wild Things”
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
Gertrude Stein: Christian Bérard
Anybody can be taught to love whatever whatever they like
better.
Video: How to Cultivate a Healthy Gut Microbiome with Food
Food for gut health: An unhealthy intestinal biome is a major contributor to heart disease and other illnesses.
Jianqing Zheng: The Dog Years of Reeducation (excerpt)
When the sampan glides to shore, the bird lands back on the shoulder of the rowing girl while lotus leaves whisper in the morning sunshine.
Theodore Roethke: The Waking
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
Tony Gloeggler: Honestly
I’ll place a bowl of Cheez-Its
in her lap, drop a Milk Dud
or Jordan Almond, spoon melon
into her mouth.
Patrick Henry: How Dorothy Day found her calling while fighting the 1918 flu pandemic
Dorothy Day’s nine months as a nurse at the height of a pandemic that killed 50 million people, deepened her commitment to the poor, homeless and abandoned.
Emily Suzanne Carlson: Mother of Pearl
oysters don’t ignore
the “irritant,” they tend to it,
letting it shimmer
Barbara Crooker: On Teaching Poetry Classes in My Old Elementary School in Honor of Its 100th Anniversary
Yes, I know my mother isn’t there, as I walk up and down Main Street;
she’s moved to a different zip code, the one with no returns.
Brenna R. Hassett: The Evolution of the Human Pair Bond
Despite our very human flair for variety and adaptation, most societies around the world set a pair-bonded couple at the heart of how their members reproduce.
Wally Swist: Three Poems for Tevis
I discover what remains
is the light that shines through
Rebecca Gordon: Trump Showed Us Who He Is the First Time Around
Trump 2.0 Would Be Even Worse
Kim Stafford: How to make money
Sell munitions to nations at war. Sell relief supplies
for distribution at war. Fly diplomats around to talk
about war. Pay speech-writers to equivocate about war.
James Wright: A Note Left in Jimmy Leonard’s Shack
Near the dry river’s water-mark we found
Your brother Minnegan,
Flopped like a fish against the muddy ground.
