poem

The Old Age of Nostalgia Those hours given over to basking in the glow of an imagined future, of being carried away in streams of promise by a love or a passion so strong that one felt altered forever and convinced that even the smallest particle of the surrounding world was charged with purpose of [...]

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she plans to do it again

Three for the Mona Lisa 1 It is not what she did at 10 o’clock last evening accounts for the smile It is that she plans to do it again tonight. 2 Only the mouth all those years ever letting on. 3 It’s not the mouth exactly it’s not the eyes exactly either it’s not [...]

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poem

Question Body my house my horse my hound what will I do when you are fallen Where will I sleep How will I ride What will I hunt Where can I go without my mount all eager and quick How will I know in thicket ahead is danger or treasure when Body my good bright [...]

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listener: wooden heart

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poem

Mother Mid April already, and the wild plums bloom at the roadside, a lacy white against the exuberant, jubilant green of new grass an the dusty, fading black of burned-out ditches. No leaves, not yet, only the delicate, star-petaled blossoms, sweet with their timeless perfume. You have been gone a month today and have missed [...]

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poem

Modern Declaration I, having loved ever since I was a child a few things, never having wavered In these affections; never through shyness in the houses of the rich or in the presence of clergymen having denied these loves; Never when worked upon by cynics like chiropractors having grunted or clicked a vertebra to the [...]

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poem

Happiness There’s just no accounting for happiness, or the way it turns up like a prodigal who comes back to the dust at your feet having squandered a fortune far away. And how can you not forgive? You make a feast in honor of what was lost, and take from its place the finest garment, [...]

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prayer

welcome to the wisdom of the world May your journey through the universal questions of life bring you to a new moment of awareness. May it be an enlightening one. May you find embedded in the past, like all the students of life before you, the answers you are seeking now. May they awaken that [...]

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poem

Fall Fall, falling, fallen. That’s the way the season Changes its tense in the long-haired maples That dot the road; the veiny hand-shaped leaves Redden on their branches (in a fiery competition With the final remaining cardinals) and then Begin to sidle and float through the air, at last Settling into colorful layers carpeting the [...]

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poem

compassion With humbleness, may I face everyone with compassion With devotion to enlightened life may I abide in true compassion So that others may know their true Heart, may I have the wisdom and True Knowledge to bring out the best in everyone With compassion for this world with all and everyone in it, may [...]

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poem

Beannacht On the day when the weight deadens on your shoulders and you stumble, may the clay dance to balance you. And when your eyes freeze behind the grey window and the ghost of loss gets in to you, may a flock of colours, indigo, red, green, and azure blue come to awaken in you [...]

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poem

Morning Song Here, I place a blue glazed cup where the wood is slightly whitened. Here, I lay down two bright spoons, our breakfast saucers, napkins white and smooth as milk. I am stirring at the sink, I am stirring the amount of dew you can gather in two hands, folding it into the fragile [...]

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poem

Yes, long shadows go out from the bales; and yes, the soul must part from the body: what else could it do? The men sprawl near the baler, too tired to leave the field. They talk and smoke, and the tips of their cigarettes blaze like small roses in the night air. (It arrived and [...]

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poem

Arc My seatmate on the late-night flight could have been my father. I held a biography, but he wanted to talk. The pages closed around my finger on my spot, and as we inclined into the sky, we went backwards in his life, beginning with five hours before, the funeral for his only brother, a [...]

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poem

Blackbirds I am 52 years old, and have spent truly the better part of my life out-of-doors but yesterday I heard a new sound above my head a rustling, ruffling quietness in the spring air and when I turned my face upward I saw a flock of blackbirds rounding a curve I didn’t know was [...]

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vigil

Life is too short to sleep through. Stay up late, wait until the sea of traffic ebbs, until noise has drained from the world like blood from the cheeks of the full moon. Everyone else around you has succumbed: they lie like tranquillised pets on a vet’s table; they languish on hospital trolleys and friends’ [...]

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dream

If you are the night’s cry I am the sea’s moan If you are the sun’s beam I am the tree’s shade If you are the silk hand of a dream I am the darkness that takes you in If you are the world Then I am everything. – Atea Lynn, age 11

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no bad news

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poem

Naming My Daughter In the Uruba tribe of Africa, children are named not only at birth but throughout their lives by their characteristics and the events that befall them. The one who took hold in the cold night The one who kicked loudly The one who slid down quickly in the ice storm She who [...]

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poem

“I am always with you, even when you are not able to feel me in your heart. I love you always, I surround you with my protecting love, even when you occasionally forget me. I listen to your problems, if you are sincere and receptive, I give you solutions. I hear your prayers and answer [...]

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