While trees ravaged by the ice storm can be seen in every direction, there are a great many that have come through unscathed. The young cedar in our little wilderness is one, as is the juniper, which will soon break into bloom. The pine, the branches of which were so weighted with ice that they hung by its side, has resumed its airy, elegant form, with only one small broken […]
The reading ebbs and flows. Lately it has slowed to a crawl. Or maybe it goes on by itself while the reader is otherwise occupied — except that the reader often is not occupied at all. In fact, the reader’s presence should not be assumed, although his body may be, for it serves as a kind of bookmark in the story that is the reader’s life. A great many stories […]
Street by street, power is being restored. Last night at nine o’clock, it was thirty-five degrees. This morning at three-thirty, it was forty-five. Yesterday morning, we viewed the destruction around town. The ice storm has closed roads, brought down wires, felled mighty oaks, split cedars, ravaged birches, and crushed cars and rooftops with mossy limbs. In the afternoon, the roar of chainsaws filled the air. They will be running for […]
An ice storm. Large and small, the trees and shrubs, draped with icicles and encased in ice, are bowing, weeping, cracking, breaking. Flights of geese. Flocks of birds. February 13, 2021 . The Hobo’s Ice Jar An old scraggly hobo asked for water. But my wife and I had no water, because we were in the process of clearing out the kitchen. The cabinets were empty, the faucet was missing. […]
Of the many wonderful things written and said by Carl Sandburg, there is one that often springs to mind which never goes out of fashion: Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits. Starlings are sunshine birds. They know how the light plays on their feathers. A layer of snow and ice: first at the feeder this morning were the juncos. A walk before sunrise, every step accompanied by a […]
The idea that there are certain kinds of behavior that must be punished — where has it come from, and why is it so widely accepted? Why do millions of people call for the punishment of corrupt politicians? Why do they desire so strongly to see them punished? And what of the millions of others who emulate and praise their behavior, and see it not as evil, but as good? […]
There is talk of more snow. The mossy wall. The crocus. The daffodil. February 11, 2021 Oku no HosomichiJanuary 23, 2017 . [ 1017 ]
Evil, it seems to me, is an acute form of ignorance. If I have time to be angry, then I must also have time to love. And if I love, I have no time to be angry. And time itself is an illusion. Will these words reach you before we are gone? Will they reach anyone? What can that matter, if we love? Recently Banned Literature, February 21, 2018 . […]
Sometimes, as I sit here writing in the dark, I feel as if my hands belong to someone else working just beyond the veil — a parallel realm in which objects roam free of any given meaning, and the sound of a passing train — I hear it now — is that someone’s remembered childhood. “Arrival” Poems, Slightly Used, February 18, 2010 . Revival . . . and now / […]
