On the day the world ends A bee circles a clover, A fisherman mends a glimmering net. Happy porpoises jump in the sea, By the rainspout young sparrows are playing And the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be.…

1. Indeed I live in the dark ages! A guileless word is an absurdity. A smooth forehead betokens A hard heart. He who laughs Has not yet heard The terrible tidings. Ah, what an age it is When to speak…

Let the day grow on you upward through your feet, the vegetal knuckles, to your knees of stone, until by evening you are a black tree; feel, with evening, the swifts thicken your hair, the new moon rising out of…

1. Something came up out of the dark. It wasn’t anything I had ever seen before. It wasn’t an animal or a flower, unless it was both. Something came up out of the water, a head the size of a…

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among things that change. But it doesn’t change. People wonder about what you are pursuing. You have to explain about the thread. But it is hard for others to see. While you hold…

(Art by Michael Divine) HAPPINESS Whoever embraces a woman is Adam. The woman is Eve. Everything happens for the first time. I saw something white in the sky. They tell me it is the moon, but what can I do…

It all matters… That someone turns out the lamp, picks up the windblown wrapper, says hello to the invalid, pays at the unattended lot, listens to the repeated tale, folds the abandoned laundry, plays the game fairly, tells the story…

  HIDING is a way of staying alive.   Hiding is a way of holding ourselves until we are ready to come into the light. Even hiding the truth from ourselves can be a way to come to what we…

It is very difficult to pick a ‘favourite’ poem – but if put to absolute pin of my collar, I would choose this one as my favourite. It is beautiful….   ‘There will be a talking . . .’ by…

My grandmother prophesied the end Of your empires, O fools! She was ironing. The radio was on. The earth trembled beneath our feet. One of your heroes was giving a speech. “Monster,” she called him. There were cheers and gun salutes…

When you start on your journey to Ithaca, then pray that the road is long, full of adventure, full of knowledge. Do not fear the Lestrygonians and the Cyclopes and the angry Poseidon. You will never meet such as these…

When I was wounded whether by God, the devil, or myself —I don’t know yet which— it was seeing the sparrows again and clumps of clover, after three days, that told me I hadn’t died. When I was young, all…

1. Something came up out of the dark. It wasn’t anything I had ever seen before. It wasn’t an animal or a flower, unless it was both. Something came up out of the water, a head the size of a…

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among things that change. But it doesn’t change. People wonder about what you are pursuing. You have to explain about the thread. But it is hard for others to see. While you hold…

Good Bones by MAGGIE SMITH Life is short, though I keep this from my children. Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways, a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways I’ll keep from my children. The world is…

No coward soul is mine, No trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere: I see Heaven’s glories shine, And faith shines equal, arming me from fear. O God within my breast, Almighty, ever-present Deity! Life–that in me has rest, As I–undying…

Defenseless under the night Our world in stupor lies; Yet, dotted everywhere, Ironic points of light Flash out wherever the Just Exchange their messages: May I, composed like them Of Eros and of dust, Beleaguered by the same Negation and…

Vasavada taught breathing to me as prayer, as clearing, as vision. The popular tonglen practice aside for a moment, Vasavada AND Aunt Edna, both used to say in order to calm oneself: Breathe in blue, breathe out red. In our…

I prefer movies. I prefer cats. I prefer the oaks along the Warta River. I prefer Dickens to Dostoyevsky. I prefer myself liking people to myself loving mankind. I prefer keeping a needle and thread on hand, just in case.…