Identical is Boooooring

Gerard Manly Hopkins' "The Wind Hover, To Christ Our Lord" This poem by Hopkins does not have the identical of a parable wherein we might find explanations; rather here we have the raw edges of ambiguity rubbing to reshape chaos to the will of a Maker.

Last Blush

Alex looked into the coffin where their father lay. Rouged and all dressed up and nowhere to go, he thought. He shook his head. How machinations of undertakers steal the last vestige. “He don’t even look like Old Joe,” Joe D said. He shook his head. “Too much rose.” “In the pink,” Freddy said. His … Continue reading Last Blush →

146040 Bird by Dorianne Laux — American Life in Poetry

For days now a red-breasted bird has been trying to break in. She tests a low branch, violet blossoms swaying beside her, leaps into the air and flies straight at my window, beak and breast held back, claws raking the pane. Maybe she longs for the tree she sees reflected in the glass, but I'm… To … Continue reading 146040 Bird by Dorianne Laux — American Life in Poetry →

Mary Oddledean Comments on Patience

"The patience," Mary Oddledean wrote in response to the question on the survey, "is what makes this job so wonderful. It don’t matter who brakes the rules or why, everybody weights quietly and politely until things are sordid out. Even during mock-up evacuations, nobody pushes, or shoves, or screams or swears. Especially, they don't swear, … Continue reading Mary Oddledean Comments on Patience →

Bird Woman Speaks

“I don’t suppose anyone here has ever heard of the Olicanucian Flyinitus,” Robin said. The fireplace light flickered and danced in her small obsidian eyes. “No, Robie, no,” Merle said. “These folk don’t need to hear your misadventures in the Pleistocene.” He spoke quickly and his voice trembled, and we sensed in his warning more … Continue reading Bird Woman Speaks →

Waiting Room

Four people, four devices-- Four wrinkles in the Universe. Four silences.

Have They Kept the Swallows in Capistrano this Year?

"I am certain that the Lord, who notes the fall of a sparrow. . . ." Thomas S. Monson No ill more nauseous than still white quiet in the catkin willow grove. Noise

Marty’s Proposition

One thing you never wanted to do around Marty Malpropiter, if you wanted any sense in a conversation, is let him think the conversation had intellectual underpinnings. As long as you kept to cows, horses, hay, irrigating, barb wire, bowling, football, road building, and such, things went fine. O, Marty may throw in an occasional … Continue reading Marty’s Proposition →

Black Rags

wind harries black rags against blue sky, white crowned mountains— raven croak Fact

Getting an Earful

And suddenly nothing. Nothing. Zip. Miranda Velositer wasn’t saying anything. Nada. A typical hour with Miranda Velositer consisted of at least sixty-eight minutes— sometimes as much as eighty minutes—of monologue. Reggie Velositer would know. He has spent, by his own calculation, twenty-five million hours, give or take, with Miranda. Twenty-five million interminable hours, most of … Continue reading Getting an Earful →