From the stack outside the window’s frame,White smoke, mostly steam, breaks hard acrossA bright blue square of winter sky.It tumbles in gusts, and its knots untieThen vanish in air. They are strangely calming, these forms aboveThe skeletal trees, the drifted roofs,Above the houses where livesGo . . . . Continue Reading »
First snow falls in kindagreement to timeless ways.Gratia plena. Our Lady of Careis a kindly countenancesad as autumn frost. Faithful tears reclaimgardens brought to graceless ruinby wishing wells of sin.—Frederick S. . . . . Continue Reading »
How good and fine it would have been, to be out upon the wild loon swellsAnd watch the sea-eagles coming in;Or to climb, body lashed by salt sea spray, upThrough the face-lashing spray of pine,To view through a rift the goshawk’s nest, and, hunched over allThose downy forms, that fierce red eye;Or . . . . Continue Reading »
I fish this bay all morning.High clouds cap me, a light breeze tickles the water's skin.Fall's green-brown leaves shade the shore. By noon, no fish. I lean over the gunwale staring into the water.I cannot see past my own reflection, rippled by . . . . Continue Reading »
Tugged out of bed by a dream,he enters the world, confrontscats stalking the hallway,aghast at this early walker.The moon, almost full, glowson the crust of old snow. Back in the bedroom, his wifedreams in a world that is histo return to. Perhaps.But for now he’s hereby the window, . . . . Continue Reading »
The alarm sinks its teethinto my ear. I drag outof our warm bed. Anotherwinter day breaksin fragments of nightmare.The sun hasn’t shown,afraid to face this growling windand the thousands of drearycommuters going nowhere beyondthe dollar sign and grave marker. I punch on the light and youroll back . . . . Continue Reading »
Nutshells on patched linoleum,cracks skipped overon the long sidewalk home,hide-and-go-seek gamewe stopped counting. Still sometimes we huntfor that small face,ragged sleeve abovea chapped hand.We search beneathdecayed porches, throughyards full of dry weedsand rusted cans. The blown years . . . . 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 »
The appearance of perfection: Chiaroscuro come to an August day Wafted by van Rijn. Against the waving sky is the great tree Icon for what, I do not wish to know. Icon for what I do not wish to know. What I cannot defeat I will to learn to meet. Measure with level gaze . . . . Continue Reading »
Old people can’t write poetry. Only those who think and live and feel and praise and swear and fight and love and give birth to babies can give birth to poems. Not old people. No dear old lady living in retirement with a shawl around her shoulders, living among . . . . Continue Reading »
Subscribe
Latest Issue
Support First Things
