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 XXIIIWhere 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 dropof dew is not a microcosm. No. Flowers wither. Dust collects. There is therelentless 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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