by Wendell Berry Hardly escaping the limitless machines that balk his thoughts and torment his dreams, the old man goes to his own small place of peace, a patch of trees he has lived from many years, its gifts of a few fence posts and boards, firewood for winter, some stillness in which to know […]
by Mark Doty A little heat caught in gleaming rags, in shrouds of veil, torn and sun-shot swaddlings: over the Methodist roof, two clouds propose a Zion of their own, blazing (colors of tarnish on copper) against the steely close of a coastal afternoon, December, while under the steeple the Choral Society prepares to perform […]
by Wendell Berry The gods are less for their love of praise. Above and below them all is a spirit that needs nothing but its own wholeness, its health and ours. It has made all things by dividing itself. It will be whole again. To its joy we come together—the seer and the seen, the […]
by James Tate I was standing at the kitchen sink washing a few dishes, when I hear this knocking at my door. I looked out the window, but there was no one there. But the knocking continued. I looked down, and there was this wild turkey staring at me. He must have been about four […]
by Tomaž Šalamun You boil that bit of time in between. The difference between when you come and when you say you are coming. No. It’s not that simple. I too am no novice. The difference between the expected and the real arrrival regardless of what you said. The Bible cannot be read literally. Layers […]
by Wendell Berry When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I […]
by Jane Kenyon I divested myself of despair and fear when I came here. Now there is no more catching one’s own eye in the mirror, there are no bad books, no plastic, no insurance premiums, and of course no illness. Contrition does not exist, nor gnashing of teeth. No one howls as the first […]
by Matthew Zapruder (excerpt) 3 If you know the story of Marco Polo you know after a long journey he came upon the Mongol armies sleeping and wisely turned back already composing a much more fabulous story than not being able to report being torn apart by four horses attached to his limbs. From then […]
by Matthew Zapruder All day I’ve felt today is a holiday, but the calendar is blank. Maybe its Lamp Day. There is one very small one I love so much I have taken it everywhere, even with its loose switch. On its porcelain shade are painted tiny red flowers, cleary by someone whose careful hand […]
by Elizabeth Bishop Oh, but it is dirty! —this little filling station, oil-soaked, oil-permeated to a disturbing, over-all black translucency. Be careful with that match! Father wears a dirty, oil-soaked monkey suit that cuts him under the arms, and several quick and saucy and greasy sons assist him (it’s a family filling station), all quite […]