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Another Birthday
I turned 70 today. A day like any other day. Showers in the morning. In the afternoon, the rain stopped and the sky brightened, so I went out for a walk. It was one of those spring walks during...
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The Wind in the Pines
In this part of the world, the deciduous trees are empty, save for a few leaves fluttering drily on otherwise bare branches. Gone (at least for now) are the green days of whispering, soughing, and...
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Messages
Where does one begin when it comes to autumn? And where does one begin when it comes to the poetry of autumn? For some unknown reason, these lines by Ezra Pound (a translation of lines written by Li...
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Small Things
One afternoon last week, as I walked along the edge of a grove of pines and maples, I heard a bird's voice up ahead, high in a pine. Not a song or a warble, but two firm, quick calls of the same note,...
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Frolic and Detour
Forty-one years on, I retain very little from my three years of law school. Memories of friendships. And of a love. Alas, lost. As for "The Law" itself, only a few scattered phrases remain from all...
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Suddenly
Over a lifetime, I have failed to give the moon the attention it deserves. But it is patient and forgiving, despite my faithlessness. Thus, in the first week of this month, as I was out walking at...
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Autumn Into Winter
As I have mentioned here in the past, each day I read a poem in the morning and a poem in the evening. This was today's morning poem: Autumn EndsLost in vacant wonder...
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Journey
The swallows have departed. The tall, dry meadow grass rustles in the nearly empty air. Now and then a sparrow suddenly flutters up from beside the path, then flies off toward the trees surrounding...
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Home
This modest (and, of late, fitful) undertaking owes its name to Edward Thomas. I expressed my thanks to him (accompanied by the touching elegy "To E. T.: 1917" written by his friend Walter de la Mare)...
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One Thing Leads to Another, Part Two: Two Poems on a Spring Day
Each morning, I read a poem. A long-time habit. I began a recent spring day with this: Tilling the field;From the temple among the trees, The funeral bell tolls.Buson (1716-1784) (translated...
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Current Events
On a recent afternoon walk, I heard an unseen owl call from somewhere off in the forest: "Hoo-hoo . . . hoo-hoo." This seemed to be a gentle inquiry, a tentative "How do you do?" After about ten...
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At the Turning of the Year
Solely by happenstance, this observation surfaced out of my memory during the past week: "The future's uncertain and the end is always near." An unexpected message for the New Year? And who might be...
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Christmastide
At Christmas, I turn to Thomas Hardy. (As well as to George Mackay Brown (for instance, "Christmas Poem": "We are folded all/In a green fable . . .") and R. S. Thomas (a bit astringent, as one might...
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No Grieving
Most of the leaves have fallen. One day last week -- a proverbial "brilliant autumn day" -- I walked past a grove of big-leaf maples bordering a small glade. The ground beneath the maples was covered...
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Birdlife
Has any poet written as many beautiful and memorable lines as Yeats? I confess that I am biased by circumstances. I discovered the poetry of Yeats at an impressionable age: in my sophomore year of...
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September
Once again, September. The past few weeks, the afternoons have sometimes been as warm as midsummer. But the leaves -- ah, the leaves: green going to gold, and to brown, amber, orange, and red....
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Life and Art. Art and Life.
One morning this week, as I walked along a shadowy but sun-dappled path through a grove of trees, I came upon a single golden pine needle hovering vertically in mid-air, at eye-level, above the path....
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One Thing Leads To Another, Part One: Bells
As I am wont to do several times a year, I recently returned to the poetry of Walter de la Mare. At the beginning of last week, I revisited an old favorite: The BellsShadow and...
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Haiku
Over the past two months I have spent much of my reading time moving back and forth within the Spring volume of R. H. Blyth's four-volume Haiku. The set has been with me for more than 40 years. I...
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Presences
It is that time of year once again: I step out the front door, walk for an hour or so, and return, all the while accompanied by birdsong (occasionally punctuated by a crow's caw-caw-caw from off in the...
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