To continue my thoughts from yesterday. I realize that we think that the world was a lot simpler place in the 50’s and early 60’s. After all, America had won the Second World War and had forgotten about the stalemate in Korea–they could blame that on the United Nations, since it wasn’t really an American [...]
Archive for February, 2008
God Did Not Die Alone
Posted in Life on February 28, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
The Friday Afternoon Roethke Class
Posted in Poems, Poetry on February 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Gardner is the teacher,
And he likes Roethke
And Dickey,
But Roethke more
Or so it seems,
As I doodle in the margins of the Roethke anthology,
Yesterday’s reading and a response,
Turned in and now I sit
Scribbling pictures of moist,
And always green.
I must get a green pen,
If I am to do these poems justice.
The notes are scribbled like thoughts
In a loose-leaf [...]
Faith of Our Mothers
Posted in Religion and Life on February 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
They were sure. At least, I think they were. They never gave any indication that they had any kind of doubts. My mother and father took us to church every time the doors opened. We went to Sunday School on Sunday morning, then to what we all, including the adults, called “preaching.” There was Training [...]
Cemetery
Posted in Poems, Poetry on February 26, 2008 | 1 Comment »
The gravestones murky with rain
Cradled by wet grass
Are tended by green trucks
That guard the mausoleum of those who fear the dirt.
Row after row
Erect themselves from the flowers
And trees that drip wet morning
And feed the worms of Poe.
I come not to grieve,
But to stand and gaze at those
Who know.
Day After Cemetery
Posted in Poems, Poetry on February 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Last night dripped from the tree.
There was no dawn,
Just a gradual gray day.
The sun had to be there.
It had always been.
But today,
The sun is just belief.
The rain came and went.
Moments of noise,
Followed by quiet,
Birds
And no frogs.
The roar came on the tin again.
Then frogs.
And no birds.
A cup of coffee and another cigarette.
An unpainted rocking chair with [...]
A Note about the Blog Stats
Posted in Uncategorized on February 21, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I was reviewing the Blog Stat page when I noticed that 2 people had hit my blog using the search “if god doesn’t control.” I wonder what they were looking for and what they found. And there were two of them.
If Wendell Berry Dropped By
Posted in Poetry on February 21, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
If Wendell Berry dropped by,
What would he say about my computer?
I’m afraid I know,
And why do I care?
I have read a couple of his poems—
More than a couple, okay?—
He’s all right as a poet,
A little too sentimental for my taste,
A little too knowledgeable for my world,
But he loved his father
More than Dickey.
And his words are [...]
Michelle, Look Around
Posted in Politics on February 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I am proud of my country. I have been to others; I didn’t want to stay there. I am proud of it when it is wrong. I am proud of it when it is right. I am proud of it when it allows the wife of a candidate for the United States Presidency to say [...]
Pickled Peaches
Posted in Poetry on February 19, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
My mother made pickled peaches
From the small, almost ripe first peaches.
We brought them home in tall bushel baskets
After they had been culled from the ones
That her brother, who got the farm,
Would sell at market.
The trip to the farm was always on Sunday.
We would get to skip church
And ride in the back of the used Ford
That [...]
That Page
Posted in Poetry on February 19, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Too young, we stood.
I remember the feeling,
As the sun sizzled
a long line of blue, red and gold knights,
Clad in the armor of youth.
We could not die.
However, through the years,
I scratched the faces from the picture in the platoon book:
One died in Pleiku,
One in Saigon,
Another disappeared in a rice patty,
Slaughter was a hero on a numbered [...]
