Sonnet Caught — the bubble in the spirit level, a creature divided; and the compass needle wobbling and wavering, undecided. Freed — the broken thermometer’s mercury running away; and the rainbow-bird from the narrow bevel of the empty mirror, flying wherever it feels like, gay! Elizabeth Bishop And if you are so inclined, here is […]
Poetry
Inexhaustible, Mysterious Genius: Elizabeth Bishop
The Library of America has just released a new volume on Elizabeth Bishop. I have several others from the LOA series and find the quaintness of these publications comforting–the smaller size, the simple glossy black cover, the onionskin-thin paper, the bookmark cord supplied for you to employ immediately at your favorite spot. Having this carefully […]
The Shape of Her Soul is a Square
She Considers the Dimensions of Her Soul (Mrs. Morninghouse, after a Sermon Entitled, “What the Spirit Teaches Us through Grief”) The shape of her soul is a square. She knows this to be the case because she sometimes feels its corners pressing sharp against the bone just under her shoulder blades and across the wings […]
From the Center of My Life Came a Great Fountain
The Wild Iris At the end of my suffering there was a door. Hear me out: that which you call death I remember. Overhead, noises, branches of the pine shifting. Then nothing. The weak sun flickered over the dry surface. It is terrible to survive as consciousness buried in the dark earth. Then it was […]
Living in the Layers
The Layers I have walked through many lives, some of them my own, and I am not who I was, though some principle of being abides, from which I struggle not to stray. When I look behind, as I am compelled to look before I can gather strength to proceed on my journey, I see […]
To the End of the Earth and Back Without Sound
I’m still sitting in the fragrance of the excerpted passages from the Francis Clines article that I posted earlier this week. This visual image for example has a powerful persistence for me: For his opening classes at Harvard, Heaney usually prescribes selections from East European poets, stark verse that is hardly the language of bogus […]
More From Seamus
Like an old friend who drops in and ends up staying a few days, Seamus Heaney has been on my mind ever since I read those few lines I posted yesterday. Here’s a short poem by him that delights, enchants, creates longing (the good kind.) Song A rowan like a lipsticked girl. Between the by-road […]
Timorous or Bold
I found a passage from a poem by Seamus Heaney, quite by chance. It stopped me in my tracks: ”The way we are living, timorous or bold, will have been our life.” Just coming out of a long period of living life beneath the surface of things, those words cut through to the bone. So […]
Jorie Graham: Prayer
This poem by Jorie Graham has had particular resonance for me today. I share it with the intention of passing its magic along to anyone else who might need its wisdom. Prayer Over a dock railing, I watch the minnows, thousands, swirl themselves, each a minuscule muscle, but also, without the way to create current, […]
Thoughts On a Moonbeam for a New Year
Moonbeam The mist rose with a little sound. Like a thud. Which was the heart beating. And the sun rose, briefly diluted. And after what seemed years, it sank again and twilight washed over the shore and deepened there. And from out of nowhere lovers came, people who still had bodies and hearts. Who still […]