from The Jade Buddha: A Sequence In the midst of a life, out by the propane tank, by the stacked timbers, while magpies kept up their quizzical cat-like calls in the piñons— a little threatening, their small part in the large thinking of the planet, their part to be clever and quick, seasonal marauders at…
Once the phone, called the “telephone,” was a voice one heard by pressing what looked like a stethoscope to one’s ear, answering by shouting at a device on the wall. This was before talking on the phone was invented—a more intimate exchange using a receiver that allowed one to speak to the voice while holding…
Philip Levine recommends Skirts and Slacks, poems by W. S. Di Piero: “In his new book, the poet W. S. Di Piero manages to place the reader in specific places at particular times with such ease and authority that after a single reading I felt close to lives I’d known nothing about and cared nothing…
I loved one person do you see the evergreen there in fog one by one I was taught to withdraw first from him do you want to know how the mind works under extreme cold ice forming on the eyelid or wind thrown at me I felt every needle felt every breath…
You meet at most four archbishops in a lifetime. You have at most one lifetime. You sing when in pain and expect to be heard. You see the outline of holy figures, their windows and blinds. You want to kiss the gold of the coat and you want it to come off on your lips….
Gary Soto recommends Star Apocrypha, poems by Christopher Buckley: “Buckley has been the master of nostalgia in his previous eight collections, and once again he has distinguished himself with a sorrow for the Santa Barbara of his childhood, for music, for his late friend and inspiration Larry Levis, and-this is scary-for the middle age moving…
for Taha Muhammad Ali and for Aaron Shabtai From nothing but his fear, and kiss her cunning brows Who braves the risen salar, daughter’s bursting ripeness Moaning through the sash, he marries to a settler The crown sits on his head, to hold her as he wants For him the dead king’s wife, in a…
The May morning I came to where I was not expected. The May morning hazy with the mad swirl of maple seeds, where you stood blocking the door. “Where is Mom?” My voice lifted innocent as a child’s balloon. My face needy and vacant, the face you’d loved, or someone had…
I asked Johan why he left home and came to America. How sad it can be in winter listening to the wind . . . No wonder that in the dawn in the mist, one by one figures appear among the trees, making their way to the sea. This is the day when the pack-boat…
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