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Glimmers
"Yet still the unresting castles thresh." This line by Philip Larkin came to me a few days ago as I walked through a grove of trees, looking up at the highest boughs swaying in the wind against blue...
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What You Leave Behind
Virtually nothing is known about the Greek poet Praxilla, who, it is conjectured, lived in the middle of the Fifth Century, B. C. Of her poetry, only scattered fragments survive: a few lines quoted...
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How to Live, Part Thirty-One: Repose
Reading the poetry of Robert Herrick always helps to put our day-to-day world into perspective. For instance: Nothing NewNothing is new: we walk where others went.There's no...
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Autumn
I beg your pardon, dear readers, for the lengthy silence. I fell ill upon returning from an early September journey to Southern California to attend a nephew's wedding. Of course, the usual suspect...
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Passers-by
Reading Chinese poetry of past centuries, one often encounters poems of parting, as well as poems of longing for a family member or friend who is far away in a distant corner of the kingdom, perhaps...
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Beauty
" . . . like a dove/That slants unswerving to its home and love."Earlier this week, about an hour before sunset, I was out for a walk, my attention drawn to the sky in the west. The waters of Puget...
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How to Live, Part Thirty-Two: River
Human nature being what it is, the world has always been, and will always be, beset with utopian busybodies who have taken leave of their senses. (As ever, I draw a strict distinction between the...
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In Passing
"Life passes swiftly, hedged by sorrow;/how long before you've lost it -- a scene like this?" (Su Tung-p'o (1037-1101), "On a Boat, Awake at Night.") One of the pleasures of reading classical Chinese...
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Dreams
Each year I grow fonder of the robins who spend the winter here, gathering into small flocks, making their way across the meadows and through the woodlands. I suspect this fondness is partly a product...
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Peace and Quiet
All I ask for in life is peace and quiet, accompanied by an occasional fugitive encounter with Beauty and Truth. How does one go about pursuing these elusive will-o'-the-wisps? I have no wisdom to...
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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