Starlings may mean more than we supposed,Their ugliness but a guiseHiding beauties too deep to probe.Look how they adorn the barren oak,Mimicking so many black and restless leaves,Remnants, making what to them is musicAgainst a sky whose blue is nearly white,This winter day as still as God’s own . . . . Continue Reading »
From the eastern rim Jorgé throws a rockinto the deep and we hear nothing in return.An American lady says as she walks awaythat it’s a nice place to visit and her voicetrails off. And “breathtaking” sayssomeone else we’ll never get to . . . . Continue Reading »
For Nicola I send fond wishes to a horse named TontoAnd you, sweet Nicola, who once was wont toCross a busy London thoroughfareTo ride about the Common on this mare.But there’s another matter that’s still pending,And that’s her boyish name you keep defending. A change to something like La . . . . Continue Reading »
Half a day’s detour to Gran Quivira—and we arrive, near sunset,to find a locked gate across the road. . . . . Continue Reading »
this is not the woodsand wildlife is not two chipmunks scampering across the sidewalk the trees stand here in landscaped disorder shrugging leaves with seasoned . . . . Continue Reading »
I see the treesyou’ve seen and knownpoised in mute witnessthe baled hay hunchedlike insatiable livestockgnawing its wayback to the earththe river muttering madlyits secrets swallowedunder the . . . . Continue Reading »
This morning, early, I wakened to a knocking at the pane—an apple bough, fruit-laden, stirred by wind—and rose to the morning’s clear gift. Outdoors in sunlight, bending to the kind of labor that gives back more than it costs, I mowed the grass and planted . . . . Continue Reading »
“There was a bole of an olive tree with long leaves growing Strongly in the courtyard, and it was thick, like a column. I laid down my chamber around this.” The Odyssey, Book XXIII Where but in bed does the world begin. Where man and woman know, like children. By touch and taste, by gentlest . . . . Continue Reading »
The rules of chaos are simple: A mountain is never a perfect cone. A lake is never really a circle. A drop of dew is not a microcosm. No. Flowers wither. Dust collects. There is the relentless return of what we do not want. Everything inclines to disorder. But then how . . . . Continue Reading »
Charlottesville, 9:00 A.M.For once, snow; its drapery everywhere Like the pure wool of midnight, The thoughtless swooning of a shawl.On the porch outside my window Six sparrows breakfast on seeds. Their world gone white, their life Suddenly monastic and severe.No wind; yet . . . . Continue Reading »
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