The Lentiest Lent

The governor of my state ( Maryland USA)  issued a “Stay Home” order last night.  So we join a number of other states in this.  Coronavirus cases are growing here, but nothing compared to other places in the country. Meanwhile, here is an appropriate poem written by William Carlos Williams in the early 20th century:

Pachamama

art by TeklaU     The greening of the lawns, which I can see from my bedroom window, as well as the Spring Equinox, make me think of all the artistic renderings of Mother Earth. Today I am especially reflecting on Pachamama.  I didn’t even know of her existence until Jennifer Heath, in her wonderful

Keeping Quiet

  Today, on this rainy Saturday, this poem by Pablo Neruda spoke to me: Keeping Quiet — by Pablo Neruda Now we will count to twelve and we will all keep still for once on the face of the earth, let’s not speak in any language; let’s stop for a second, and not move our

This Spring let the world keep out

    Here’s an appropriate poem by Ruth Lechlitner:     Ruth Lechlitner     Forever This Spring      Published: The New Masses, March 14, 1939.   This Spring let the world keep out, we said, alone Our feet to the path over the woodmint, The red-tipped moss, and ours the single flower Lovely under stone.   But

we would all be together in a sudden strangeness

With all the closures all over the world, in efforts to contain the spread of Covid 19, frightening things are happening.  Surprising things, too.  I just heard that the previously filthy canals in Venice and sparkling with clear water. Here’s a poem by Pablo Neruda: Keeping Quiet — by Pablo Neruda Now we will count

A Ritual to Read to Each Other

I love this poem by William Stafford: A Ritual to Read to Each Other BY WILLIAM E. STAFFORD If you don’t know the kind of person I am and I don’t know the kind of person you are a pattern that others made may prevail in the world and following the wrong god home we may

In the midst of all the cancellations

Here in the United States, the reality of the spread of the Covid-19 is just hitting us. Our incompetent and cowardly President has not helped at all. In the meantime, on a personal level,  my fiftieth college reunion is cancelled as well as all the St. Patrick’s Day concerts, the early Spring flower shows, and…

Spring Forward

Time Flies     by  Christian Schloe   Here’s a poem for Daylight Savings by Margaret Hasse: Day after Daylight Savings BY MARGARET HASSE Blue numbers on my bedside clock tell I forgot to change the hour. This sets routines on haywire. Like a domestic goat staked to its circle of earth. I don’t do well untethered.

the lovely colored smells of Spring

  Those fragrances are only just beginning here , but still…   art by Sandy Caruso     Here’s a  poem by Christina Rossetti: Spring Quiet   “Gone were but the Winter, Come were but the Spring, I would go to a covert Where the birds sing;   Where in the whitethorn Singeth a thrush,

That corn-fed, husky milkmaid

Aksell GallenKallela     Peasant Women Dancing by a Lake   Here’s a poem by Boris Pasternak   March   “The sun is hotter than the top ledge in a steam bath; The ravine, crazed, is rampaging below. Spring — that corn-fed, husky milkmaid — Is busy at her chores with never a letup.   The