Homesteading, by Ellen Steinbaum (1943-) I am spreading out stretching my reach to occupy new territory. I am pouring into drawers, taking over space. Only small encroachments first– a shelf of the medicine chest where the aftershave and razors used to be– and soon I own the cabinet and the closet, where my shoes now […]
A Mother To Her Waking Infant, by Joanna Baillie (1762-1851) Now in thy dazzling half-oped eye, Thy curled nose and lip awry, Uphoisted arms and noddling head, And little chin with crystal spread, Poor helpless thing! what do I see, That I should sing of thee? From thy poor tongue no accents come, Which […]
Museum of the Unmoving Image, by Clive James (1939-) The objects on display might seem to lack Significance, unless you know the words. The final straw that broke the camel’s back, The solitary stone that killed two birds. Does this stuff really merit a glass case? A tatty mattress and a shrivelled pea, A shadow […]
The New Song, by W.S. Merwin (1927-) For some time I thought there was time and that there would always be time for what I had a mind to do and what I could imagine going back to and finding it as I had found it the first time but by this time I do […]
Outside of Richmond, Virginia, Sunday, by Deborah Slicer (1953-) It’s the kind of mid-January afternoon— the sky as calm as an empty bed, fields indulgent, black Angus finally sitting down to chew— that makes a girl ride her bike up and down the same muddy track of road between the gray barn and the […]
Bedtime Reading for the Unborn Child, by Khaled Mattawa (1964-) Long after the sun falls into the sea and twilight slips off the horizon like a velvet sheet and the air gets soaked in blackness; long after clouds hover above like boulders and stars crawl up and stud the sky; long after bodies tangle, dance, […]
Immortal Sails, by Alfred Noyes (1880-1958) Now, in a breath, we’ll burst those gates of gold, And ransack heaven before our moment fails. Now, in a breath, before we, too, grow old, We’ll mount and sing and spread immortal sails. It is not time that makes eternity. Love and an hour may quite out-span […]
When You See Millions of the Mouthless Dead, by Charles Sorley (1895-1915) When you see millions of the mouthless dead Across your dreams in pale battalions go, Say not soft things as other men have said, That you’ll remember. For you need not so. Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know It […]
Sternly Departing, by Mark Halliday (1949-) Nobody seemed to notice me for three days in San Diego as if I were less significant than a spindly palm tree yet when my plane took off from the airport at that moment all over San Diego people paused and glanced into some crystal of absence; the plane’s […]
Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas, by Clement Clarke Moore (1779-1863) or Henry Livingston Jr. (1748-1828) ’Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro’ the house, Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there; The children […]