Category Archives: Currently reading

I grew up reading Rilke under the assumption that I was reading a woman, Maria. (Ah pre-internet days.)  Go to the Limits of Your Longing God speaks to each of us as he makes us,then walks with us silently out of the night.These are the words we dimly hear:You, sent out beyond your recall,go to […]

Emily Pauline Johnson (a.k.a. Tekahionwake, “double wampum”) I discovered in an estate sale of a cousin. She won the book as a high school English prize around a century ago. This poem I memorized, the fourth of fifth, I memorized after Edna St. Vincent Millay, some Macbeth and I Think Mice are Rather Nice. https://www.poetry.com/poem/12603/penseroso Penseroso Soulless is […]

I’ll be periodically posting poems I’ve long loved, some love back to the 80s. Maya Angelou’s lines On Aging frequent my head: On Aging When you see me sitting quietly,Like a sack left on the shelf,Don’t think I need your chattering.I’m listening to myself.Hold! Stop! Don’t pity me! Hold! Stop your sympathy! Understanding if you got it,Otherwise […]