Carolyn Miller: Street Trees of San Francisco
despite everything
that keeps going wrong—the ginkgos,
opening tiny green fans.
Carolyn Miller: Rapture
When they said the world was coming to an end,
I thought about my brother, his long limbs,
his good shoulders and thick hair, his small
white teeth, his beautiful feet at the end
of the hospital bed.
Audio: Mary Oliver reads “Wild Geese”
Mary Oliver reads “Wild Geese” for Seattle Arts & Lectures’ 2007/08 Season at Benaroya Hall on February 4, 2008.
Bruce Lowry: Just Long Enough
My desire is only this—to die someplace the earth made beautiful all on its own, the way a first-grader makes the morning glory out of construction paper and Elmer’s glue, … Continue reading
Rachel Hadas: That Patch of Warmth
August. Midday. Look up: flawless sky
until a cloud sprouts; sidles; suddenly
blots out the sun. Wind troubles the trees
Dawn Potter: For David
The world is personal,
Dawn says. And what heart-scalded person
would think otherwise
Mary Jane White: Lindeman
you led me alone
into the sandhills, told me how you were named
for the lindens that grow like smaller oaks
or elms in Europe’s parks
Laure-Anne Bosselaar: Dusk
Yet, while time takes its time to steal the light,
another music stirs, as if memory’s notes
had escaped their staff, & the past came to sing
beside me of its ordinary moments
Mary Jane White: Friend, You Count Yourself Faithless,
…the Sea and all her ships
are women you are too certain of —
who would not marry you for love.
Martin Edmunds: Crowes Pasture
the sky is iron, rusting
round the edges; ravens settle like scorched
pages in the oak
Lex Runciman: Coast Morning Not a Painting
The upper third color field
is all tin flash, ocean blue shoulders and tics.
That wide mid-brown crossed by shine is sand
and fresh water going home.
Chard deNiord: I Was Walking Around
in the woods below the house by the stream when suddenly I thought, Why write another thing about the woods or stream or sky as I have for years? Why … Continue reading
Mary Jane White: Friend, Tell Me, What Can I Know
…always the sun failed again
for the evening, and the short grass fell dull
in the shadows, out of the slant-light.
Jane Satterfield: Fox
the fox
is interloper, is fur of russet
and iron, is light-footed, is real
in my alley
Vox Populi 