the natural world, where every moment is full of the passion to keep moving. Inside every mind thereâs a hermitâs cave full of light, full of snow, full of concentration.
Iâve knelt there, and so have you, hanging on to what you love,
the natural world, where every moment is full of the passion to keep moving. Inside every mind there’s a hermit’s cave full of light, full of snow, full of concentration.
I’ve knelt there, and so have you, hanging on to what you love,
Location: Half inch above the K/T boundary Gender:
Posted:
Dec 25, 2019 - 8:43am
The Christmas Story by Robin Richstone
We know by heart these stories of a cold world, unwelcoming inn, the murderous tyrant, Mary on a donkey, escape, how cruel, how long ago, how far from what we mean to sing, O Come, O Come, to the weary, the terrified, Mary's heart beating fast, her grip on the baby, the strains of it fill the shops, the streets, flow down rivers, cross seas, cross borders, the refugee mother kneels to change her infant in an open field, the shepherds gone, the angels quiet, her safety now completely up to us.
Location: Half inch above the K/T boundary Gender:
Posted:
Dec 2, 2019 - 11:48am
On My Own (excerpt)
...
The teachers were soft-spoken women smelling like washed babies and the students fierce as lost dogs, but they all hushed in wonder when I named the 400 angels of death, the planets sighted and unsighted, the moment at which creation would turn to burned feathers and blow every which way in the winds of shock. I sat down and the room grew quiet and warm. My eyes asked me to close them. I did, and so I discovered the beauty of sleep and that to get ahead I need only say I was there, and everything would open as the darkness in my silent head opened onto seascapes at the other end of the world, waves breaking into mountains of froth, the sand running back to become salt savor of the infinite. Mrs. Tarbox woke me for lunch—a tiny container of milk and chocolate cookies in the shape of Michigan.
Of course I went home at 3:30, with the bells ringing behind me and four stars in my notebook and drinking companions on each arm. If you had been there in your yellow harness and bright hat directing traffic you would never have noticed me—my clothes shabby and my eyes bright—; to you I'd have been just an ordinary kid. Sure, now you know, it's obvious, what with the light of the Lord streaming through the nine windows of my soul and the music of rain following in my wake and the ordinary air on fire every blessed day I waken the world.
Location: Half inch above the K/T boundary Gender:
Posted:
Dec 1, 2019 - 6:47am
December 1st by Billy Collins
Today is my mother's birthday, but she's not here to celebrate by opening a flowery card or looking calmly out a window.
If my mother were alive, she'd be 114 years old, and I am guessing neither of us would be enjoying her birthday very much.
Mother, I would love to see you again to take you shopping or to sit in your sunny apartment with a pot of tea, but it wouldn't be the same at 114.
And I'm no prize either, almost 20 years older than the last time you saw me sitting by your deathbed. Some days, I look worse than yesterday's oatmeal.
Happy Birthday, anyway. Happy Birthday to you. Here I am in a wallpapered room raising a glass of birthday whiskey and picturing your face, the brooch on your collar.
It must have been frigid that morning in the hour just before dawn on your first December 1st at the family farm a hundred miles north of Toronto.
I imagine they had you wrapped up tight, and there was your tiny pink face sticking out of the bunting, and all those McIsaacs getting used to saying your name.
I've written a poem a week for a long time as part of a poetry club, never found a good place to post them... thought this might be a good spot to plant a few originals from the past 6 months. Enjoy, discuss, be kind.
This is indeed a good spot. I remember your post from a few months ago also. Keep feeling. Keep writing. There may not be a lot of discussion or critique but for sure it's being read. I've always found Radio Paradise to be incredibly receptive to original creativity. Many of us; myself included, have often complicated thoughts and emotions and find them hard to articulate. Poetry isn't like an HOV lane for high volume traffic. Often it's more like a dirt road, as yet unpaved and without conditional access...
I've written a poem a week for a long time as part of a poetry club, never found a good place to post them... thought this might be a good spot to plant a few originals from the past 6 months. Enjoy, discuss, be kind.
for america
pretend you don't care send a thought, or fake a prayer A-K shells still lying there bodies lay in disrepair.
no amount of gun control will fix a land without a soul no law upon a dated scroll will be enough to pay this toll.
no check inside a voting booth no eye for an eye nor tooth for a tooth can ease the pain or start to soothe the quest for an answer, a fragment of truth.
mental health don't mean a thing or video games or bad parenting or CNN cutaways to children crying for this is our price to let freedom ring.
Will LeTendre
Terms and conditions
Growing old is getting old live to die is what we're sold is there life and what is death when we breathe our final breath
A final drive in our old car we won't have to go too far bring the wine lets have some fun make out until the daylights done
Call the kids, say our goodbyes one last look into your eyes the car hum echoes in my ear our final act of our final year
A haze it grows so thick inside you lean on me I almost cried been so much for me to bare to understand how much you care
Going now its closing time clouded head, slurred rhyme Even after all this fuss I see Charon has come for us
Will LeTendre
Silhouette my silhouette
The obscurity of my shadow is that it's always there even in dim starlight it's hanging on somewhere.
Was near a total eclipse I saw my outline gazing at my rippled white blanket where shadow snakes were grazing.
It's been here since the start but I can't help but wonder will my shadow still stay with me when I'm buried six feet under?
Location: Half inch above the K/T boundary Gender:
Posted:
Jul 27, 2019 - 4:46am
More of Everything by Joyce Sutphen
The people who made me possible came from places in middle Europe, riding steamships through the middle of the nineteenth century. They didn't always get their right names, and if they wrote home, I never heard.
The people who made me possible worked hard clearing the land, tree by stump by prairie grass, hauling rock off the fields and gravel to the roads. They seldom stopped to consider if here was better than over there––
wherever that was. If they regretted anything, they didn't say, and they didn't tell stories about the old country; my people didn't make a fuss about being born or dying early–– they always died early––which
explains why they loved weddings and christenings, birthdays and the Fourth of July––any time they could sit at a picnic table listening to a polka band, going back many times for more of everything.
Location: Half inch above the K/T boundary Gender:
Posted:
Jul 23, 2019 - 5:40am
The Road by Dana Gioia
He sometimes felt that he had missed his life By being far too busy looking for it. Searching the distance, he often turned to find That he had passed some milestone unaware, And someone else was walking next to him, First friends, then lovers, now children and a wife. They were good company–generous, kind, But equally bewildered to be there.
He noticed then that no one chose the way— All seemed to drift by some collective will. The path grew easier with each passing day, Since it was worn and mostly sloped downhill. The road ahead seemed hazy in the gloom. Where was it he had meant to go, and with whom?
The solemn pond displays the summer night Perfect in the rondure of its speculum, The sky set out in order, light by light. Serenely a muskrat noses through the lines Of stars; the cool reflective moon sways in The water that trembling languidly but once Now settles, steadies itself again, and shines Impassive within the astonished O, again Moveless, upon the waterâs plane immense. Something has happened in the world this night Of rare consequence for some time to come, Whether or not it alters the final sum.
Fred Chappell
Chappell is a favoriteof mine. Thanks for this.
You're welcome
M only acquainted with him but I shared a visit with he and his sweet wife recently over a beverage. He fascinates me. The Shadow Box collection is so amazing...
I love love love his fiction. I Am One of You Forever is one of my favorite novels. Please tell him so, for me.
I will next time! I see them occasionally at a local establishment.
The solemn pond displays the summer night Perfect in the rondure of its speculum, The sky set out in order, light by light. Serenely a muskrat noses through the lines Of stars; the cool reflective moon sways in The water that trembling languidly but once Now settles, steadies itself again, and shines Impassive within the astonished O, again Moveless, upon the waterâs plane immense. Something has happened in the world this night Of rare consequence for some time to come, Whether or not it alters the final sum.
Fred Chappell
Chappell is a favoriteof mine. Thanks for this.
You're welcome
M only acquainted with him but I shared a visit with he and his sweet wife recently over a beverage. He fascinates me. The Shadow Box collection is so amazing...
I love love love his fiction. I Am One of You Forever is one of my favorite novels. Please tell him so, for me.
The solemn pond displays the summer night Perfect in the rondure of its speculum, The sky set out in order, light by light. Serenely a muskrat noses through the lines Of stars; the cool reflective moon sways in The water that trembling languidly but once Now settles, steadies itself again, and shines Impassive within the astonished O, again Moveless, upon the waterâs plane immense. Something has happened in the world this night Of rare consequence for some time to come, Whether or not it alters the final sum.
Fred Chappell
Chappell is a favoriteof mine. Thanks for this.
You're welcome
I'm only acquainted with him but I shared a visit with him and his sweet wife recently over a beverage. He fascinates me. The Shadow Box collection is so amazing...
The solemn pond displays the summer night Perfect in the rondure of its speculum, The sky set out in order, light by light. Serenely a muskrat noses through the lines Of stars; the cool reflective moon sways in The water that trembling languidly but once Now settles, steadies itself again, and shines Impassive within the astonished O, again Moveless, upon the waterâs plane immense. Something has happened in the world this night Of rare consequence for some time to come, Whether or not it alters the final sum.
smoke rises from trees now gone I think of these friends that came from seed their shade, their colors, their leaves now brown we tidy up their broken bones the rains are here, the rains are here desert winds blow no more along with fearsome flame relief once more , the rains are here we labor deep with sweating brow, must tidy, tidy, tidy cause the rains are here as we end our day in reverent peace the curling smoke haunts the valley view our blackened hands, our face with ash relief the task is done once more and as rains dance on our roof of iron we celebrate the rains are here, the rains are here.
