Canticle By Wendell Berry What death means is not this – the spirit, triumphant in the body’s fall, praising its absence, feeding on music. If life can’t justify and explain itself, death can’t justify and explain it. A creed and a grave never did equal life of anything. Yellow flowers sprout in the clefts…
Late Lament Breathe deep the gathering gloom,Watch lights fade from every room.Bedsitter people look back and lament,Another day’s useless energy spent.Impassioned lovers wrestle as one.Lonely man cries for love and has none.New mother picks up and suckles her son.Senior citizens wish they were young.Cold-hearted orb that rules the nightRemoves the colours from our sight.Red…
In the Meantime By Max Garland The river rose wildly every seventh spring or so, and down the hatch went the town, just a floating hat box or two, a cradle, a cellar door like an ark to float us back into the story of how we drown but never for good, or long….
My Brain Is Mad for Baudrillard By Elizabeth Knapp Today, I read of scientists’ warnings about the potential dangers of sex robots and thought of you. Some blame the rise of right-wing populism on postmodern windbags like you, holed up in your university office, giving head to your shadow. But Jean, you were right—…
Waiting for Your Call by Aria Aber The light retreats and is generous again.No you to speak of, anywhere—neither in vicinity nor distance, so I look at the blue water, the snowy egret, the lace of its feathers shaking in the wind, the lake—no, I am lying. There are no egrets here, no water….
THE DRY SALVAGES (No. 3 of ‘Four Quartets’) I I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river Is a strong brown god—sullen, untamed and intractable, Patient to some degree, at first recognised as a frontier; Useful, untrustworthy, as a conveyor of commerce; Then only a problem confronting the builder…
BURNT NORTON by T. S. Eliot (No. 1 of ‘Four Quartets’) Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future, And time future contained in time past. If all time is eternally present All time is unredeemable. What might have been is an abstraction Remaining a perpetual possibility Only in…
Willmar, Minnesota. Years have passed since visiting with relatives here. Willmar, a great plains town is a center for the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad. Driving into Willmar, you are unlikely to miss the switching yard for the freight bearing trains bound for Chicago, or for the Pacific coast. Willmar is home to the…
Another week begins. The Olympics in Tokyo are in full swing. I watched some of it on TV. The main event of my weekend was attendance at the Geneva Art Fair. I had several memorable conversations with artists. Life at best, is an art-form, a practice that reveals beauty and meaning. I aspire to…
June 20, today is Father’s Day. I am suspicious. Could Father’s Day be a “Hallmark holiday,” created by clever marketers to sell cards, to condition “consumers” to spend more? Learning to be a good father is important. I just do not think fatherhood compares to the months of pregnancy, to the hazard of giving…
