If You Want Dragon Smoke
Could it be that Robert Bly’s Looking for Dragon Smoke is the book I’ve been looking for? And what did I do? I read a few pages after it arrived back in May, then put it on the shelf—always saving…
What Meets the Eye
Thanks to Camille Paglia, I have mixed (and rather confused) feelings about the Romantic poets. In short, I don’t know what to make of them. If I am to believe Paglia, they were all perverts with strange sexual proclivities that…
Peace on Earth
Has there ever been peace in the world, and if so, will there ever be again? I suppose it depends upon who you ask. Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum, has an image of world peace that looks…
Which Craftsmen do You Study?
Billy Collins writes poetry that should be read every day. His imagination and the way he shapes what he finds in it make his work special. In “2128,” he’s imagining the 200th birthday of a man named Donald Hall: ……
Scatter the Seed and Go On with Your Life; I Mean it
Plant a tree for me, said someone I know—as we know people these days.The notion caught my attention.What a lovely thought, I said tothe space in my mind that receivesand holds onto all the wordscreated by the space in my…
A Madeleine Day
Will I ever retire Walking on Water: just leave it alone or give it away? I doubt it. It continues to speak to me, even though I would never think to include L’Engle in a list of my favorite writers.…
Let the Night Be Too Dark
At most he thinks or twitters softly, “Safe!Now let the night be dark for all of me.Let the night be too dark for me to seeInto the future. Let what will be, be.” —Robert Frost Living in day-tight compartments is…
This Milky Way of Souls
I have been reading The Road to Vatican II by Maureen Sullivan, OP, in two ways these past few weeks. Sister Maureen was one of my professors in college, and I’m glad I went ahead and bought this book, as…
Thinking and Knowing
Art and poetry get banished from our lives, and we are impoverished. We put our hands in our empty pockets and wonder why nothing fills them. We turn to roadmaps and instruction manuals but are still unable to decipher how…
Who Does Your Thinking?
A very short poem from Robert Louis Stevenson ran through my mind this morning: The world is so full of a number of things,I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings. Now, I can’t personally vouch for the…
Be Still
A fifteenth-century poet named Hatton Ransetsu wrote a lovely haiku that I discovered quite by accident, but it speaks to me: Pine tree silhouettePainted by the harvest moonOn a shining sky I have photographed such silhouettes on more than one…
Windstorm
The light glorious warms the hours,asking forgiveness for the galebullying trees and knocking them flat,tearing at ropes, stopping the buzz.The sharp silence inside.the gentle roar outside.Ticklish trees and leaves at playswooping and swirling,sashaying and sliding,dipping to descend in a blink,blanketing…
