And if the sky is a well, and a well is the mind,
then perhaps thirst is the flight of our kind.

Child Flight — September 24, 2015
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And if the sky is a well, and a well is the mind,
then perhaps thirst is the flight of our kind.

Child Flight — September 24, 2015
[ 309 ]
And when I say this is really a drawing of her hands,
I wonder, who will be able to imagine them?

Canvas 1,232 — March 5, 2019
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You made the sky purple,
the boy drawing with me in second grade said.
But which boy? And what was his name?

Canvas, 1,231 — March 4, 2019
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It might be said that those who laugh at beginners are afraid to begin themselves. But this fear is also a beginning. It might be said that those who rush to lavish praise on masters of their respective callings and crafts, are not aware that these same masters understand that in the face of so much beauty and immensity they are beginners still, and feel this is natural. It might […]
In the ground a year now, our little apricot tree has seen its share of weather. From its simple beginning as a stick in the mud with a few roots to hold it down, it made good progress during its first summer, and, growing late into the fall, it needed several frosts to persuade it to let go of its yellowed leaves. Then came rain, hail, and snow. It has […]
Where pain is unexplained, I liken it to love. I liken it to childhood, too. No? Isn’t it like looking deeply into brown eyes, Into green, into gray, into blue? Where pain is unexplained, I see sweet ripples on the pond. If swimming is to lose, is drowning living on? I think it must be so, where love is true, And pain is unexplained. February 27, after an early-morning walk […]
Does it take self-discipline to let the body work its daily cures and wonders, or simply patience, understanding, attention, gratitude, and love? And where do these things dwell, if not in the body? answered the dove. Sore Feet For the willow tree philosophy is one more leaf on the water. Songs and Letters, March 5, 2008 [ 295 ]
It should be clear by these pages that I lead a very simple, quiet life. For what do I write about, really, other than this little place I occupy, and the steps I take daily to traverse it? And yet, this little place is part of a much bigger place, and the bigger place is part of limitless space. And limitless space — who knows that it might not be […]
Why did the robin take a vigorous bath yesterday, on a thirty-five-degree winter afternoon? Did he do it to spite the incoming snow? And where is he now? Near the ice-rimmed pool, watching the white-bright world from under the rhododendron, warm to his red in its bed of dry leaves? At two this morning, I was awakened by snow-light. Out walking before seven, I saw a boy in front of […]

We experience the falling away of friends — not those claimed by death, but by circumstances, of those suffering disappointment in themselves or in us, or both, or some form of private, quietly held anxiety or embarrassment, or of those who have succumbed to weariness, habit, or boredom. Some we have known in the flesh, others through correspondence. And it seems all, whom we thought we understood so well, we […]