Canvas 301 — Clouds
Wondered the child, Is God in the clouds, or are the clouds in God? And God said, That is a question I love. And the child sang low. And the child sang on.
Tag Archive for ‘Children’
Sky-Song and Maple
First light and fine lace — our love is a maple, my dear. Sky-Song and Maple Sky-song and maple, so-goes the riddle, summer-lap and old-toes, soft-breast and all-she-knows, you in the middle, light-glows, water-flows, night-long the bell-tolls, the dew-rose, the cradle. Recently Banned Literature, June 19, 2014
Strawberries — Haiku, Poem, and Dream
Indeed, love bids the earnest question: Can one have truly tasted a fresh, ripe strawberry and still believe in politics and war? The answer is, quite clearly, No. May 17, 2019 Haiku June With my very own eyes — a ripe strawberry picking a little girl. Poems, Slightly Used, June 18, 2009 Rainbow Ring Around the Sun Rainbow ring around the sun rain to come grandson […]
Enlightenment Is
I don’t have a lofty idea of myself as something apart, say, from the workings of my innards, or the flexing of my tendons and toes as I crawl around the yard pulling weeds, while my ears are engaged in the harvest of birdsong. I once entertained the time-honored belief that I might be an entity distinct from my body, but that belief has since given way to an acceptance […]
Newborn
Our grandsons were here, together and warm in their grandmother’s chair, talking about football. I went out for a walk after supper. It was cold, but not too: twenty-nine degrees; still, but not blue: the breath of a breeze. The stars were out. The Big Dipper was standing on its end: pirouette. No one was out: no cat, nor dog, no cleared throat. Bare trees: ghosts: roses: smoke: fir is […]
All the World’s Children
Everyone who was there is gone. This rain is their conversation — a gust of night air through the open front door, the bark of the dog, the winter crunch of a shoe in the yard. And far off — can you hear it? — a child is being born. All the World’s Children On the most painful of days, all the world’s children come forth bearing flowers: red […]
To French Vanilla and All the Other Flavors
Someday, perhaps, the unhappiest and most destructive of our kind will simply be loved by the rest of us into grace — caressed, as it were, by the whole human race. Now, look at the face. Look, and then ask yourself: Am I willing to love? Or am I above such tragic disgrace? And: If I am above, how came I to be so unlike the truth I proclaim — […]
Winter Work
Book by book I go, dusting, cleaning, reading, examining, inhaling, arranging. A library is a strange, quiet joy. It is good fortune, and in these times, when ignorance is vaunted, heralded, and prized, it is a reminder that wisdom and sanity are still alive in the world. And then when the rain stops, I put on even older clothes and go out and prune the fig tree, which, over the […]
A Bedtime Story
Certainly you must like the idea of being a page held fast by a child’s soft thumb, and plied by a mind untried by no trial or grief beyond ordinary hunger and thirst, no fear, no loss, no doubt, or question of worth. Or would you rather be the child you think, you remember, you are, you were? Both, I’m sure. A Bedtime Story Read it again, Daddy. I […]
Canvas 592 — To the Child
You’ve just sailed into the harbor. This is your face. And this is the face of all who are glad you are here. Do you see she is a he is a we with a tear? To the Child So much strife, rooted in the idea of ownership — in the idea that “this land is your land, this land is my land.” But this land, this earth, this […]
