A Poem for Lent

    Lachrimae Amantis By Geoffrey Hill What is there in my heart that you should sue so fiercely for its love? What kind of care brings you as though a stranger to my door through the long night and in the icy dew seeking the heart that will not harbor you,...

Calling Cards

Calling Cards Across pages hundred footprints of ideas, worlds within, shut-in, choked from chains of dust, caress each corner down binding torn and worn open page, set free captive verse and thought. Hands reach quench thirst starve ignorance whisper with ages share...

Maple Trees, Maple Sugaring, and Soul-Extracting

I didn’t plan to write about trees. It just so happens I saw a poem about willow trees on a website, and a corresponding article about willow trees and aspirin, which prompted me to write about willow trees here. I happened to come across a poem (posted near the...

The Willow Tree

  I grew up near a golf course with graceful, majestic willow trees on the edge of the property. The golf course and the trees were just around the block and I loved looking at those beautiful trees. It was private property and it was also a golf course, so it was not...

This is a Strange Place (by Madeleine L’Engle)

“This is a strange place” This is a strange place and I would be lost were it not for all the others who have been here before me. It is the alien space  of your absence.  It has been called, by some,  the dark night of the soul. But it is absence of dark...

Awake

Awake (poem) nowhere safe—sunlight seeps, permeates crevices— deep corners awake     © prasanta 2/2017 * Picture taken on a hike in the Black Mountain, NC area. Black Mountain is part of the Appalachian Mountain Range extending from the Blue...

The Day is Done (by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

The Day is Done By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow   The day is done, and the darkness             Falls from the wings of Night As a feather is wafted downward             From an eagle in his flight.   I see the lights of the village             Gleam through...

The Journey (by Mary Oliver)

The Journey by Mary Oliver One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice– though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. “Mend my life!” each...

Horizon (poems)

  Horizon: Drawing Lines If you draw a line there And I draw a line here What do we draw beneath and above ourselves Are we walking toward the same inimitable sunset If you put a tree there, and I put a tree here Can we rest under the same shade We see one...