Lifesaving Lines: The Bight, by Elizabeth Bishop

‘Awful but cheerful’ is the final phrase and line of ‘The Bight‘, by Elizabeth Bishop. I’ve always felt that the … More

The sweetness of 2020

I don’t want to pretend for a second that it was great. It was full of rawness and grief and … More

Dear Arthur Frank I’m writing to say thank you for your extraordinary book At the Will of the Body. It is … More

The Fear of Poetry In this moment when we facehorizons and conflicts widerthan ever before, we want our resources,the ways … More

Twilight Three minutes ago it was almost dark.Now all the darkness is in theleaves (there are no morelow garage roofs, … More

The Layers I have walked through many lives,some of them my own,and I am not who I was,though some … More

I can’t be alone in experiencing the coronavirus crisis and resulting lockdown as something of an infringement on my … More

The Schoolchildren Like leaves startled by a gust of windthey peel away from the tight-knit group,one child, two, another, more,taking … More

Simply Lit Often toward evening,after another day, afteranother year of days,in the half dark on the way homeI stop … More

Dying Nothing to be said about it, and everything –The change of changes, closer or further away:The Golden Retriever … More

The washing never gets done.The furnace never gets heated.Books never get read.Life is never completed.Life is like a ball … More

As Planned After the first glass of vodka you can accept just about anything of life even your own mysteriousness … More

Empathy and New Year A notion like that of empathy inspires great distrust in us, because it connotes a further … More

A Blessing in Disguise Yes, they are alive and can have those colors, But I, in my soul, am alive … More

Mary At first a fluttering then a kick, his fist pummelling my rib cage when I knelt to pray. They … More

BC – AD This was the moment when BeforeTurned into After, and the future’sUninvented timekeepers presented arms. This was the … More

December Il va neiger dans quelques jours Francis Jammes The giant Norway spruce from Podunk, its lower branches bound, this … More

Supper Never before has she danced so well. Now she stands before him, her feet bare, Anklets lightly … More