Thinking in Circles
byReading the new selected poems of Wanda Coleman, Wicked Enchantment (Black Sparrow Press, 2020), at the same time as Kristi Carter’s new collection Aria…
poetry
Outside the Word Balloon
byfor Bill BerksonCandid paths crossingThis way and thatAn iron-on winter rain Jackknifes through the treesEffortless smileSuch capable handsSublime scribble Bending the windTurrets of excessOverlook…
Summit, Elk Hills
byIn the distance, smeared by haze, thin snow from last week’s storm that seems to persist along the ridgeline will melt in a day…
Rutabaga
byYou darken as my knife slices blushing at what you become. I save your thick leaves and purple skin to feed the cows. A…
If You Would Read the Bible
bygo to some foreign place, Juarez, say, in Mexico, and listen to a large woman, a powerful laughing mother, talk about her children crawling…
Day 30: Catalogue of Trees
byThat poet born of heaven came to be in residence, and plucking his resounding lyre strings, he summoned many shade trees to his presence….
Day 24: Gardiner Creek
byThey exhaust me who preach the world is mine to make, as though without me – or someone sadly like me – there is…
Day 20: Silhouettes Against the Sky
byLes Silhouettes By Oscar Wilde[ref]Oscar Wilde. Poems. Boston: Robert Brothers, 1881; Bartleby.com, 1999.[/ref] THE sea is flecked with bars of grey The dull dead…
Day 18: A Walk in the Desert
byWhen you walk into a desert Alone There is a grinding sound Of your feet against The scorched and undulating sand. Go very early…
Third Sunday: Sabbath
byWe return again to Sabbath. We are called away from the work that defines the other six days to remember and practice what God first…