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Some time ago I was in a confessional booth whenThere was a moment I never experienced before orSince. It was a lovely terrible haunting moment andI continue to think...

Once again a child asks me suddenly What is a poem?,And once again I find myself riffing freely and happilyWithout the slightest scholarly expertise or knowledge;But I am entranced...

By chance I was in New York City seven months after September 11, and I saw a moment that I still turn over and over in my mind like...

As I am sitting at the stoplight under the maple and oak and cedar treesI see three tiny kids skiffling and shuffling and skittering and scufflingIn the leaves—bigleaf maples,...

If you have to sneeze on the altar do so quietly and turn Your head away from the Holy Sacrament. Please carry A handkerchief in the pocket of your...

In our family, we went to Mass every blessed Sunday of the year, and here and there you would have to go to Mass during the week because of...

You know what I remember first about my daughter being born? Weirdly, not the miracle of it, or the bruised tender extraordinary Courage of my wife, or the eerie...

What is the best poem you ever wrote in your whole life? I ask a friend of mine, aged six, and she thinks about this For a whole minute,...

Or here’s a story. One time when I was an altar boy A missionary priest arrived at our parish to conduct A retreat. He was sort of famous and...

Of course we remember everything that ever happened to us.Sure we do. We can easily make a concerted effort to forget,And successfully forget from Levels One through Eight, butYou...

Here is my dad in Manila. He is twenty-three years old. He is a master sergeant. His task is to read photographs And maps and charts and interviews with...

Our children, now lanky teenagers and just past The part where it’s all about them, are hilariously Interested about such odd parental phrases as the Cat’s pajamas and punching...

My first date with the sweet, wild woman who eventually married me was as follows: We drove two hundred miles from Boston, at speeds exceeding the speed limit, because...

One time I was driving very slowly with my oldest living brother Through an arboretum he loves, where there are ponds and foxes And owls and kingfishers, and all...

The day I was granted the Sacrament of Confirmation and was admitted with full rights and privileges to the Church Eternal got off to a slow start, because the...