Ox Cart Man Donald Hall In October of the year, he counts potatoes dug from the brown field, counting the seed, counting the cellar’s portion out, and bags the rest on the cart’s floor. He packs wool sheared in April, honey in combs, linen, leather tanned from deerhide, and vinegar in a barrel hoped by […]

anyone lived in a pretty how town by e.e. cummings anyone lived in a pretty how town (with up so floating many bells down) spring summer autumn winter he sang his didn’t he danced his did. Women and men(both little and small) cared for anyone not at all they sowed their isn’t they reaped their […]

WE are the music-makers, And we are the dreamers of dreams, Wandering by lone sea-breakers, And sitting by desolate streams; World-losers and world-forsakers, 5 On whom the pale moon gleams: Yet we are the movers and shakers Of the world for ever, it seems. With wonderful deathless ditties We build up the world’s great cities, […]

CONVERSATION OVER A CUP OF CAPPUCCINO It was high summer. The afternoon breeze Was kind enough, And so we talked away Our time. “You are beautiful,” I tell her. She looks on, And asks me: Like what? I smile: “Like a flower garden.” Rose, tulip or jasmine? She asks me. “Jasmine,” I say. Why? She […]

Askesis, Praxis, Theoria of the Wild By Gary Snyder The shining way of the wild —–its theoria is, that the world is unrelenting, brief, and often painful and its askesis, cold, hunger, stupid mistakes, bitterness, delusions, loneliness; hard nights and days are unavoidable to find the praxis is to hang in, work it out, watch […]

You Reading This, Be Ready by William Stafford “Starting here, what do you want to remember? How sunlight creeps along a shining floor? What scent of old wood hovers, what softened sound from outside fills the air? Will you ever bring a better gift for the world than the breathing respect that you carry wherever […]

Astringency // Ted Hughes I always think of the Charles River Frozen. The word ‘Astringency’ Was the cant for years. Slackly I strolled there. A big event: A million dead worms Littering the lawny grass along the walkway. Modern times had caught them up And overtaken. String ends Too short to be saved. The cindery […]

Entrance By Rainer Maria Rilke Whoever you are: in the evening step out of your room, where you know everything; yours is the last house before the far-off: whoever you are. With your eyes, which in their weariness barely free themselves from the worn-out threshold, you lift very slowly one black tree and place it […]

Sounds of the Winter Walt Whitman Sounds of the winter too, Sunshine upon the mountains-many a distant strain From cheery railroad train-from nearer field, barn, house The whispering air-even the mute crops, garner’d apples, corn, Children’s and women’s tones-rhythm of many a farmer and of flail, And old man’s garrulous lips among the rest, Think […]

Over in Montana by William Stafford Winter stops by for a visit each year. Dead leaves cluster around. They know what is coming. They listen to some silent song. At a bend in the Missouri, up where it’s clear, teal and mallards lower their wings and come gliding in. A cottonwood grove gets ready. Limbs […]