These Are Lessons

These Are Lessons

The softness of the river stones
was earned

under the water’s heavy hands

Each day the tree allows itself
to be something new

If you project your fear
onto the garden before the flowers come

the silence of the plants
will mean that you are a horrible gardener
but not entirely unforgivable

Bookmarks List/Bedside Table

Currently reading and enjoying...

Pepper Girl, by the brilliant Jonterri Gadson. More on this later. Here’s her stunning poem, “Cousins.” I love this poet’s voice!

This essay, “Eye Candy,” by Mohan Matthen in Aeon Magazine (one of my favorite online publications). Matthen’s essay investigates the philosophical and biology implications of beauty and aesthetic pleasure. Here’s a sparkling sample:

“Aesthetic pleasure encourages us to contemplate its object. But why is this good, from an evolutionary point of view? Why is it valuable to be absorbed in contemplation, with all the attendant dangers of reduced vigilance? Wasting time and energy puts organisms at an evolutionary disadvantage. For large animals such as us, unnecessary activity is particularly expensive. The answer might lie in our modes of perception.....”

This subtle, intriguing poem by Luc Phinney, “Compass” (over at Verse Daily).


And you, friends? Reading/writing/watching/listening?

Angel Brings What Is Desired

Angel Brings What Is Desired

Tell me something I don’t know, Angel

Did it hurt
I mean, when you fell, did it hurt

Would you like coffee
May I treat you like a lover

Where is your body anyway
That isn’t your body

Where are you in this tumbleweed
of light

In what language will you speak to me
Why are you here

Angel, I don’t know if I am in a place
to hear what it is
you have to tell me

Do you have to

Can’t we sit here like this
a bit longer
my pupils shrinking and
shrinking to hold you

Book of Hours

Book of Hours

This book belongs to
not you, where your name would be
there is another name painted in

Here is a morning prayer
I am here again today
What will today be in moving through it

The day gives itself to you
It is overwhelming

There is light for you into the evening
The world enters your home through the light

All things flip over on themselves

Here is the prayer for sleep
Let my brain circle like a dog
and slump into rest

Crashing Halt

Crashing Halt

All jokes are part of the same joke
The all-encompassing joke we agree we won’t say

That’s fine There are plenty of ripples

The joke-teller pushes the piano to the edge of the roof

The worm you try to save from the sidewalk
is dead and brittle from the sun

Forty years from now flowers will emerge from that other place
the place of the unspoken, all-encompassing joke

A woman will divide one from its life
because of how pretty it is

With a laugh we can push away
all that is not funny

Bookmarks List/Bedside Table

Currently reading and enjoying (quite a lot, since it’s my spring break!)...



-“The Doctor and the Rabbi,” a fascinating short story from the brilliant Aimee Bender in Tablet Magazine.


-The good-as-cigarettes-and-chocolate-milk (as in, you will read it all in just one sitting) new issue of Guernica, “The American South: On the Map and in the Mind”. Goodies from Win Bassett (an essay on Signs Followers and serpent-handling), Lincoln Michel (“Lush Rot,” an essay on pop culture and Southern Gothic), and LaShonda Katrice Barnett (the short story “Ezekiel Saw the Wheel”).


-Sympathy From the Devil, by Kyle McCord (more on this later). For now, the line from it that is ringing in my ears is “Did you know that the best translation of Adam is earthling?” Read two poems from the book here.


-This poem, “Luther Hoops, Dead at 88,” by John Hazard (yay, blogger pal!) .


-Dark Art I-XII, James Meetze (a beautiful little specimen from Manor House). Oh, that letter-pressed cover!! (image courtesy of Manor House).

 And you, friends? Whatcha reading?