Having the Nerve to Bloom

Some of us call it a Magnolia, and some call it a Tulip Tree, but whatever we call it, this tree has the nerve to bloom when a hard frost could arrive at any time and blacken all those blossoms.   Somewhere I have a poem about this time of the year, but I can’t

The Price of Admission

Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania  USA   How much it cost in 1966:  $  0.00 How much it costs in 2016:  $20.00 Hymn to Longwood Gardens   How is it that I was born five miles from you, born to walk your three hundred acres for twelve years?   Now, thirty years later, In the satiny

The Eye of the Wind

The Window  1924    Marc Chagall   I wrote this poem last year just at this time last year:   Good Friday Morning in Maryland   Birdsong courses through the eye That I call window The wind’s eye , gritty with winter dust And Spring beginning .   The Spanish call it Ventana Which also sounds

Late Have I Loved You

I have long loved, and related to, this declaration of love for God by St. Augustine:   Augustine Confessions X.27 Late have I loved you, Beauty so ancient and so new, late have I loved you! Lo, you were within, but I outside, seeking there for you, and upon the shapely things you have made

Elephant Ear Sponge

Here is a potter using an Elephant Ear sponge:   I found pictures of this object because of this poem that I love.  It’s by Marvin Bell:   Drawn by Stones, by Earth, by Things that Have Been in the Fire   I can tell you about this because I have held in my hand

Do you want to know a secret?

Do you promise not to tell? As a teacher, I am not supposed to like, or dislike, one student more than another. But I do –  not very often, but I do. On Leap Day, yesterday, the president of the university where I teach resigned.  This is a long story that I just don’t feel