Browse Topics
Plants
A Habit Of Ascent
Childhood, the first eternity, / as I wandered our vast acre, / trying to escape the sun.
March 2014Sunbeams
June 2013When we stand beneath the night sky, we stand beneath the history of the whole of creation. It is a miracle that so much of it is perceptible — a miracle we might appreciate more if it had not occurred and we did not have senses to discern it.
The Undiscovered Country
John Elder On The Wild Places Close To Home
But to find the sacred only in the wilderness would be like finding it only in a beautiful church on Easter. Unless the sacred is imbued in your day-to-day life, in your work, in the food on your table, in the attitude you take toward the health of your own community, its value is limited.
June 2013
Family Tree
I watch my son high in the magnolia / where branches thin. His sister / at the foot of the tree shrieks for him / to come down and play with her.
January 2013Brown Thrush
As I stepped into the screened-in breezeway between my house and garage, I heard the muffled sound of wings. Something swooped by my head and landed on the screen: a brown thrush. It had flown in through the open garage door and couldn’t find its way out.
December 2012
Walk With Grand-Dog And Wallace Stevens
Sea gull quartering the wind. Heron along the shore, / then pinwheeling back, low to the water. Wind in poplar, / cedar, beech, and pine, each speaking in a different voice.
December 2012After the e-mail saying you forgave me
It was about the time the first / poplar leaves turn yellow. / The cottonmouth, thick as a muscular arm, / slid into the water at my feet.
March 2012Conversations With A Tree
Every morning I’d have an audience with my tree. I always began by saying, “Namaskar,” which is Sanskrit for “I salute the divine within you with my entire mind and heart.” Standing before the tree, I’d hear words in my head that weren’t my own. I suspected the tree was actually speaking to me, and I began a journal of our conversations.
September 2011
Please Don’t
tell the flowers — they think / the sun loves them. / The grass is under the same / simple-minded impression / about the rain, the fog, the dew
September 2011The Nature Trail Closest To My House
The nature trail closest to my house doesn’t take me to any overlooks or waterfalls. The scenery is a few flat acres of meadow grass, a shallow pond, maples, and oaks. On a map the trail would form a blocky figure 8, like the digital number on a gas pump, but there are no maps of this park, and the only visitors live within a couple of miles.
February 2011
