In Sickness and in Health

Here’s a pandemic poem from a poet in Australia: Pandemic Lynn Ungar Australia What if you thought of itas the Jews consider the Sabbath—the most sacred of times?Cease from travel.Cease from buying and selling.Give up, just for now,on trying to make the worlddifferent than it is.Sing. Pray. Touch only thoseto whom you commit your life.Center

Who swims beneath me?

On this mild and cloudy late November day called Black Friday by merchants for the shoppers who come by in droves and keep them in the black, though not so many this COVID year, I hope, I stay home and heal my skin graft, feeling the next to numbness of nearly December feeling suspended between

When the burning begins

Happy COVID-year Thanksgiving. I give thanks that we are all well enough to read this poem by Patricia Smith. It’s not a sentimental poem. When the Burning Begins Patricia Smith – 1955- for Otis Douglas Smith, my father The recipe for hot water cornbread is simple:Cornmeal, hot water. Mix till sluggish,then dollop in a sizzling skillet.When

It crept up and turned a key in my face

On Monday, November 23, I had Mohs Micrographic surgery to remove a basal cell carcinoma from the tip of my nose.  Basal cell is not deadly, but it is invasive and destructive.  So I also have a skin graft from the side of my face onto my nose.  Am swathed in bandages now.  Won’t know

Fitful gusts that shake the casement

Here’s another wonderful poem by John Clare: I love the fitfull gusts that shakes The casement all the day And from the mossy elm tree takes The faded leaf away Twirling it by the window-pane With thousand others down the lane I love to see the shaking twig Dance till the shut of eve The

from J.R.R. Tolkien

Here’s a lovely poem by Tolkien: I sit beside the fire and think Of all that I have seen Of meadow flowers and butterflies In summers that have been Of yellow leaves and gossamer In autumns that there were With morning mist and silver sun And wind upon my hair I sit beside the fire

The Common Sense of Habitats

Here’s a marvelous poem by Lynn Woollacott: The Hare In The Woods By Lynn Woollacott Wizened horse chestnuts and overlords of oak dally with a canopy of glorious beeches, knotted roots intertwine so everything touches, and offers from silver birch balcony a view of the long limbs of the leveret protruding behind a tuft of

The wild duck startles like a sudden thought

Here’s a lovely bird poem for this darkening season: Autumn Birds. By John Clare. The wild duck startles like a sudden thought, And heron slow as if it might be caught. The flopping crows on weary wings go by And grey beard jackdaws noising as they fly. The crowds of starnels whizz and hurry by,

A hundred and one butter lamps

This poem by Tsering Wangmo Dhompa really knocked me out: Bardo A hundred and one butter lamps are offered to my uncle who is no more. Distraction proves fatal in death. A curtain of butter imprints in air. After the burning of bones, ashes are sent on pilgrimage. You are dead, go into life, we pray.

We grow accustomed to the dark

Here’s a poem by Emily Dickinson that i had not encountered before: We Grow Accustomed to the DarkEmily Dickinson We grow accustomed to the Dark –When light is put away –As when the Neighbor holds the LampTo witness her Goodbye – A Moment – We uncertain stepFor newness of the night –Then – fit our