Again and again, however we know the landscape of love
and the little churchyard there, with its sorrowing names
and the frighteningly silent abyss into which the others
fall: again and again the two of us walk out together
Archive for September, 2008
Poem of the day, Sept. 30
Posted in Poem of the day on 30 September 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Poem of the day, Sept. 28
Posted in Poem of the day on 28 September 2008 | Leave a Comment »
At the midpoint of our life’s journey
I found myself lost in a dark forest
with no clear path I could see anywhere.
Ah, how very hard it is even to name
that forest, so dreadful and dense and wild
that just mentioning it brings back all my terror!
So bitter it is that death is hardly worse.
My guide and I, [...]
Poem of the day, Sept. 27
Posted in Poem of the day on 27 September 2008 | Leave a Comment »
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies,
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meets in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellow’d to that tender light
Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.
Listening With The Ear of The Heart, A Close Look at the Poems of Rilke
Posted in Essays on 25 September 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Portrait of Rilke by Paula Modersohn-Becker
Before Sigmund Freud ever founded the psychoanalytic school of psychology, before he ever published his first book on the unconscious, writers and storytellers were trying to understand the psychology of the human mind. How else could they create character development in their stories and poems?
Psychology was an interest of the [...]
Poem of the day, Sept. 23
Posted in My Poems, Poem of the day on 23 September 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Lilies of the Field
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
In the movie version, Sidney Poitier
is one of many men who volunteer
to help the nuns pour concrete,
dig holes for the foundation and [...]
Poem of the day, Sept. 20
Posted in Poem of the day on 20 September 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Onyx
No one has to tell me what I don’t have.
I’ve tried to love others before you.
Now beneath the mind’s dark luster, its
vigilance, its layering of words
like tar over the heart, a weakness
has spread. There is palsy and
bleeding, your brow and shoulders
no longer beneath my hand
and nowhere to put this impossible tenderness.
Poem of the day, Sept. 18
Posted in Poem of the day on 18 September 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Keeping Things Whole
In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.
The Gift Is The Desire
Posted in Creative Nonfiction on 13 September 2008 | Leave a Comment »
“The gift is the desire, the will to follow your dreams, to take the risk. That’s the thing I feel blessed with.” Alison Sydor (Olympic Silver medalist)
I’ve always wanted to be an elite athlete. I once wrote profiles and features on women Olympic athletes for a sports magazine. The Canadian mountain-biker Alison Sydor said this [...]
Poem of the day, Sept. 10
Posted in Poem of the day on 10 September 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not ever complete the last one,
but I give myself to it.
Breaking The Voice Into a Thousand Pieces, the Poet’s Art
Posted in Essays on 7 September 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Maria Callas
Lorna Dee Cervantes was asked once in a workshop what the opposite of poetry was. She said without hesitating, “War.” And I agree with that, but I’d be more specific and say, “Torture.”
Forcing someone to do something they don’t want to do, causing someone pain on purpose is the opposite of poetry. At least [...]
