Mary Jane White: Axe
Always the trapped smell of sunlight
& the oiled axe to split the last of the kindling
& the bank’s rippled edge & the heavy suckerfish
Robinson Jeffers: The Treasure
That silence is the thing, this noise a found word for it;
interjection, a jump of the breath at that silence
Kim Ports Parsons: May the Particles of My Body Travel the Endless Conduits
When I die, lay me in the loam under the big oak
on the path through the woods, deep down in the endless
flow of talk among the trees there…
Video: Urban Oasis – a love letter to San Francisco
A journey through the contrasting urban and natural spaces within San Francisco’s 49 square miles.
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
Paul Christensen: In the Icy Womb of Winter
My wife noted this morning that the temperature gauge outside our kitchen widow read minus 9 degrees. The windows in the bedroom were frosted over with a thick rime, so … Continue reading
Mark Twain: Two Ways of Seeing the River
Now when I had mastered the language of this water and had come to know every trifling feature that bordered the great river as familiarly as I knew the letters of the alphabet, I had made a valuable acquisition. But I had lost something, too.
Denise Levertov: Clouds
as if death had lit a pale light
in your flesh, your flesh
was cold to my touch, or not cold
but cool, cooling
Ed Bieber: Cleverness
Nature is the master here: boundless, unpredictable,
full of astonishments. The children come next. I follow.
Audio: Wendell Berry reads ‘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…
Luara Ferracioli: For a child, being carefree is intrinsic to a well-lived life
Is being carefree a special good of childhood? Is it something that confers meaning on the life of a child, without doing the same for adults? Or do adults need to be more carefree, and so be more like children, in order for their lives to go well?
Andrea Hollander: Pleasure
Because yesterday I lay fully dressed alone on my bed listening to the sweet-tempered yatter of rain I’d longed for all summer, a sound that continued for hours against the … Continue reading
Video: Haoma
Haoma is the Avestan name of a plant and its divinity, both of which play a role in Zoroastrian doctrine and in later Persian culture and mythology. Directed by Matthieu Deltour, … Continue reading
Jenne’ Andrews: Intrepid Eye, Majestic World
. How beautiful the eyeball, flecked with the residual color of the terrain—nightfall in the blue canyons, goldenrod selvage of sea cliff. Sun-kissed– the amplitude of the turning earth. It … Continue reading
Vox Populi 