Living a Week Alone by Robert Bly After writing for a week alone in my old shack, I guide the car through Ortonville around midnight. The policeman talks intently in his swivel chair. The light from above shines on his bald head. Soon the car picks up speed again beside the quarries. The moonspot on […]

Passing Through (on my seventy ninth birthday) by Stanley Kunitz Nobody in the widow’s household ever celebrated anniversaries. In the secrecy of my room I would not admit I cared that my friends were given parties. Before I left town for school my birthday went up in smoke in a fire at City Hall that […]

The Long Boat by Stanley Kunitz When his boat snapped loose from its mooring, under the screaking of the gulls, he tried at first to wave to his dear ones on shore, but in the rolling fog they had already lost their faces. Too tired even to choose between jumping and calling, somehow he felt […]

The Layers BY STANLEY KUNITZ I have walked through many lives, some of them my own, and I am not who I was, though some principle of being abides, from which I struggle not to stray. When I look behind, as I am compelled to look before I can gather strength to proceed on my […]