William Blake and Catherine Boucher: Four Images from The First Book of Urizen
The globe of life-blood trembled
Branching out into roots:
Fib’rous, writhing upon the winds:
Fibres of blood, milk and tears
Chard deNiord: Meadow Altar
So, he spoke
to his horses, now loosed from the wagon and grazing
nearby with heads bowed to the fescue and rye,
as if also praying, which, of course, they had no need
to do, blessed and saved as they were already
Sydney Lea: A Busy Life
I’m an old man now, and I do acknowledge a certain kind of pointlessness, namely my occasionally fervent striving to decode my life’s “meaning,” and even the world’s. In saner moments, I can actually consider the futility of such an endeavor a relief and a blessing.
Philip Levine: The Poem of Chalk
He knew feldspar,
he knew calcium, oyster shells, he
knew what creatures had given
their spines to become the dust time
pressed into these perfect cones
Jessica Corbett: Democracy Watchdog Exposes ‘Heartbreaking Catalog of DOGE’s Depredations’
“We hope that this report will show the public how dangerous a madman Elon Musk is, and why corrupt billionaires, with zero experience in governance, have no place making decisions for career officials.”
Abby Zimet: The Promised Land | When Fate Looks Upon You
OMG. We have landed in an inane, insane, bombastic Monty Python skit, slap-dash improvised by a sick vengeful child king churning through endless hissy fits.
Naomi Shihab Nye: 300 Goats
O lead them to a warm corner,
little ones toward bulkier bodies.
Lead them to the brush, which cuts the icy wind.
Another frigid night swooping down
Alex Crisp: The Next Frontier of Climate Accountability Is Making Big Food Pay Its Ecological Bill
The “polluter pays” principle is a cornerstone of environmental regulation.
Audio: Dr. Martin Luther King — Beyond Vietnam: A Time To Break Silence
A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.
Gwendolyn B. Bennet: Four Poems
Something of old forgotten queens
Lurks in the lithe abandon of your walk
And something of the shackled slave
Sobs in the rhythm of your talk.
Malcolm Daniel: The photography of Julia Margaret Cameron
In Cameron’s Mountain Nymph, Sweet Liberty, Miss Keene, an arresting model about whom we know nothing but her last name, stares directly at the camera (and, by extension, at the viewer), her hair loose and her eyes open wide. Filling the frame, she seems to step out of the picture.
Video: Shanti Rides Shotgun
On Manhattan’s jam-packed streets, NYC’s most iconic driving instructor prepares students for the road ahead.
Edna St. Vincent Millay: ‘She had a horror he would die at night’
She had a horror he would die at night.
And sometimes when the light began to fade
She could not keep from noticing how white
The birches looked and then she would be afraid
