Villanelle on the Oldest Known Piece of Writing by Jacqueline Osherow There’s a real chance I have it wrong, the oldest known language written down: All the songs have already been sung It sounds apocryphal, but so enticing: Akkadian? Sumerian? On...
Winter Trees by William Carlos Williams All the complicated details of the attiring and the disattiring are completed! A liquid moon moves gently among the long branches. Thus having prepared their buds against a sure winter the wise trees stand...
I stumbled across this page about Horace Pippin. His story is fascinating and the kids and I love his paintings. We spent almost an hour poring over them this morning. He was a self-taught African-American painter from West Chester Pennsylvania...
Riding the Elevator into the Sky by Anne Sexton As the fireman said: Don’t book a room over the fifth floor in any hotel in New York. They have ladders that will reach further but no one will climb them. As the New York Times said: The...
The Good Nights by Joseph Mills On the good nights when the bottle’s empty we always want just a little more, half a glass, a few sips, a taste. We know this desire can be dangerous to pursue, that it can make mornings difficult, so usually we...
Love by George Herbert LOVE bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back, Guilty of dust and sin. But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack From my first entrance in, Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning If I lack’d anything. ‘A...
I picked up this volume of poetry, Carving Myself: Poems from a Vermont Woodcarver (copyright 1977), at a used book store or book table or something. I no longer remember where I acquired it. It’s a signed copy. The poet is from Vermont and...
When we woke up this morning the thermostat read 57, though it’s supposed to be at 61 overnight and bump up to 64 at 7. When at 8:45 it was still only 58 and the heater had been on for almost two hours, we finally realized it was blowing cold...
Act of Union by Seamus Heaney I To-night, a first movement, a pulse, As if the rain in bogland gathered head To slip and flood: a bog-burst, A gash breaking open the ferny bed. Your back is a firm line of eastern coast And arms and legs are thrown...
Weekly round up of what’s going on in the Bettinelli household. 1. Lucia is officially a toddler now or, as Sophie and Ben like to say, a toggler. Yes, she loves to walk everywhere and it is the cutest thing ever to see her lurching down the...
