The elements were stark: a winter wall,snow, ice, snapped wrist. Through the breakI could just glimpse the color of the bone.But cold and white, the January crust,weren’t the whole story. Seasons turn,bones knit, a secret stirs beneath the snow. . . . . Continue Reading »
I feel less lonely when I watch TV: The heartbreak and the healing both go quicker, And Marketing’s best minds keep courting me As though my name were capping a marquee— . . . . Continue Reading »
Smart people have informed me I am on the wrong, or losing, side of history. But will there be a right and winning side when the world is gone? . . . . Continue Reading »
Though ill with cancer, I am here outdoors To walk slow steps and feel the warmth of spring. By chance, a nearby hermit thrush outpours His ecstasy to live, to fly, to sing, And daffodils hurl yellow at the sky As if they too would venerate this day. . . . . Continue Reading »
VI. Veronica Wipes the Face of Jesus He stopped a moment, when her eyesMet his and grieved to recognize The mark of suffering in his face. With a slow hand, she drew her veil,Revealed herself, ashamed and pale, As if awaiting his embrace. . . . . Continue Reading »
They trade these old books with scarce a flip, Some autographed, some lovingly signed. Most have been isolated. You know when a book Has been truly used; there’s smell, scruff of attics, Garages, closets, some abandoned under leaky Back yard roofs. You guess a humane history by the skin. Trust . . . . Continue Reading »
By the mid-1930s, W. H. Auden was the most famous and most widely imitated young poet in England. His verse was brilliant, ironic, often funny, wide-ranging in its reference—equally at home in the worlds of Anglo-Saxon heroic poetry and the technology of mining—and sometimes impenetrably . . . . Continue Reading »
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