The New Song by W. S. Merwin For some time I thought there was time and that there would always be time for what I had a mind to do and what I could imagine going back to and finding it as I had found it the first time but by this time […]

Possibilities by Linda Pastan Today I drove past a house we almost bought and heard through the open window music made by some other family. We don’t make music ourselves, in fact we define our differences by what we listen to. And what we mean by family has changed since then as we grew larger […]

Snowdrops Louise Gluck I did not expect to survive, earth suppressing me. I didn’t expect to waken again, to feel in damp earth my body able to respond again, remembering after so long how to open again in the cold light of earliest spring – afraid, yes, but among you again crying yes risk joy […]

Family by Grace Paley My father was brilliant embarrassed funny handsome my mother was plain serious principled kind my grandmother was intelligent lonesome for her other life her dead children silent my aunt was beautiful bitter angry loving I fell among these adjectives in earliest childhood and was nearly buried with opportunity some of them […]

Home Beth Powning I feel the summer rushing towards me, falling away behind. I want to gather it, to hold onto it, but it sweeps past as steadily as my child’ childhood, my parents’ youth.

From Our House to Your House by Jack Ridl It is 1959. It is the cusp of the coming revolution. We still like Ike. We are still afraid of Sputnik. We read Life magazine and Sports Illustrated where the athletes grow up shooting hoops in the driveway, playing catch in the backyard. We sit on […]

Awesome Autumn by Joan M. LaCombe It’s amazing, awesome Autumn! It’s that special time of year When Mother Nature puts on a spectacular performance. The landscape bursts into a kaleidoscope of color. The deep green of the pines accent the bright colors of maple, birch, and dogwood. The scenery is aglow with bright yellow, gold, […]

And Now It’s September Barbara Crooker and the garden diminishes: cucumber leaves rumpled and rusty, zucchini felled by borers, tomatoes sparse on the vines. But out in the perennial beds, there’s one last blast of color: ignitions of goldenrod, flamboyant asters, spiraling mums, all those flashy spikes waving in the wind, conducting summer’s final notes. […]

Feeding the Worms by Danusha Laméris Ever since I found out that earth worms have taste buds all over the delicate pink strings of their bodies, I pause dropping apple peels into the compost bin, imagine the dark, writhing ecstasy, the sweetness of apples permeating their pores. I offer beets and parsley, avocado, and melon, […]

The Poet’s Occasional Alternative by Grace Paley I was going to write a poem I made a pie instead it took about the same amount of time of course the pie was a final draft a poem would have had some distance to go days and weeks and much crumpled paper the pie already had […]