-
Winter After the Stillbirth | Renee Emerson
My husband dreads the winter. Born himself on the darkest day of the year and disregarded, he sees nothing but black ice, danger of pipes bursting, other people’s cats freezing, left outside like a name scratched off the list. But fish still swim beneath the frozen surface of lakes, and there are frogs that let their blood ice over in the mud to thaw again in the spring, green Lazarus come forth.And even I, born on the last day of winter, can see how the snow can cover this all up to look cleaner than it ever was, for a moment at least, while it is still falling in our hair, in our up-turned, hope-filled faces.
-
Here we are!I must admit, sometimes I find the daily lectionary to be a chore. Not today.
This, from Baruch (Baruch! - in the Apocrypha), is simply wonderful:
... the stars shone in their watches, and were glad;
he called them, and they said, ‘Here we are!’
They shone with gladness for him who made them.
Baruch 3:34 -
California Hills in August | Dana Gioia
I can imagine someone who found these fields unbearable, who climbed the hillside in the heat, cursing the dust, cracking the brittle weeds underfoot, wishing a few more trees for shade. An Easterner especially, who would scorn the meagerness of summer, the dry twisted shapes of black elm, scrub oak, and chaparral, a landscape August has already drained of green. One who would hurry over the clinging thistle, foxtail, golden poppy, knowing everything was just a weed, unable to conceive that these trees and sparse brown bushes were alive. And hate the bright stillness of the noon without wind, without motion, the only other living thing a hawk, hungry for prey, suspended in the blinding, sunlit blue. And yet how gentle it seems to someone raised in a landscape short of rain – the skyline of a hill broken by no more trees than one can count, the grass, the empty sky, the wish for water.
-
Dust | Dorianne Laux
Someone spoke to me last night, told me the truth. Just a few words, but I recognized it. I knew I should make myself get up, write it down, but it was late, and I was exhausted from working all day in the garden, moving rocks. Now, I remember only the flavor— not like food, sweet or sharp. More like a fine powder, like dust And I wasn't elated or frightened, but simply rapt, aware. That's how it is sometimes— God comes to your window, all bright light and black wings, and you're just too tired to open it.
-
Always Marry an April Girl | Ogden Nash | 🎂
Praise the spells and bless the charms, I found April in my arms. April golden, April cloudy, Gracious, cruel, tender, rowdy; April soft in flowered languor, April cold with sudden anger, Ever changing, ever true -- I love April, I love you.
-
The Lake Isle | Ezra Pound
O God, O Venus, O Mercury, patron of thieves, Give me in due time, I beseech you, a little tobacco-shop, With the little bright boxes piled up neatly upon the shelves And the loose fragrant cavendish and the shag, And the bright Virginia loose under the bright glass cases, And a pair of scales not too greasy, And the whores dropping in for a word or two in passing, For a flip word, and to tidy their hair a bit. O God, O Venus, O Mercury, patron of thieves, Lend me a little tobacco-shop, or install me in any profession Save this damn’d profession of writing, where one needs one’s brains all the time.
prescribe via RSS