Alice Dunbar-Nelson: Sonnet
I had no thought of violets of late,
The wild, shy kind that spring beneath your feet
In wistful April days, when lovers mate
And wander through the fields in raptures sweet.
James Davis May: Portuguese Man-of-War
Look at this one,
its sail translucent, its inky tentacles
taut as a line of verse. After the thing dies,
they go on, stinging whatever touches them.
Barbara Edelman: White-Throated Sparrow
Though she is dead
she is buying me a car
and this buying makes her happy
Tony Gloeggler: A Mother, A Disabled Son And Residential Placement
I’m getting to know our recently hired, part-time, two half days a week nurse over morning coffee. She’s thinking about trying to find a group home for her son. I … Continue reading
Barbara Hamby: O Deceitful Tongue
Drunk tongue, warling,
malt-mad forger in the bone orchard, give me
your traitor’s code, so I can whistle my psalm
through the sinworm night.
Seamus Heaney: Personal Helicon
As a child, they could not keep me from wells
And old pumps with buckets and windlasses.
I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky, the smells
Of waterweed, fungus and dank moss.
Majid Naficy: Two Neighbors
The scent of chicken tahchin
Is wafting up to me
Through the window
And I know soon
She will knock at my door…
Robbi Nester | Fog and Moonlight: Margaret in her Nightgown, alone in Bella’s yard
You threw off the rumpled sheets,
glided down the stairs and out the door,
leaving it open behind you
Daniel Tobin: The Lens
Into the wreck an available light
reigns down, more mist than glitter
Joan E. Bauer: It Takes a Lifetime
They’d both mastered the ‘poetics of place,’
small-town Mississippi and post-war California.
Welty believed & surely Macdonald agreed:
‘No art ever came from not risking your neck.’
Chard deNiord: Tree of Wisdom
I am taken in by its stand and breadth,
marveling at its brawn and reach of branches,
studying each leaf like the page of a sacred book,
embracing its trunk like a void.
Richard Feynman: Letter to Arline
I find it hard to understand in my mind what it means to love you after you are dead — but I still want to comfort and take care of you — and I want you to love me and care for me. I want to have problems to discuss with you — I want to do little projects with you.
Video: “The Tub” by Amy Hempel (with text)
My heart—I thought it stopped. So I got in my car and headed for God.
William Butler Yeats: A Prayer for My Daughter
How but in custom and in ceremony
Are innocence and beauty born?
