It is spring, and flamingoes return to the Coggios' lawn, along with the virgin in her sky-blue robe. Inside the miniature picket fence, daisy pinwheels are spinning; a pair of young deer graze and listen. I listen too, imagining the voices of the Coggios calling to me from out behind the house where they take…
1 Getting out after reading, or writing, late — or was it waiting for a call? — past the windows where, on hot nights, they don’t pull all the shades all the way down. . . (I walk by slowly, twice.) Then up a darker, more private street. My footsteps echo. Echo? Someone else’s feet,…
Adorno writes of Stravinsky: "Stravinsky's imitators remained far behind their model, because they did not possess his power of renunciation, that perverse joy in self-denial. . . . To a very large degree taste coincides with the ability to refrain from tempting artistic means." Ralph Hamilton's paintings exhibit to an extraordinary degree the "power of…
Feeding the Birds Lured by unnatural feeding, by promises of plenty lavishly sprinkled and arced and scattered on cold weather, even the tufted titmouse has recently been known to loiter in the north here into winter. To feed or not to feed? The weather lady is careful, subtle, non-committal, anxious: “I’m sure more studies must…
for my Grandmother Nobody troubled you that last night, no one came. No daughter visited whose unrelenting care accused you of your deep need to have her there: child now to your own child, only your needling her (she could do nothing right) kept clenched your pride, yet left you needing her that much more….
The wolf discovers his fur is changing: gone flat now, sleek as sealskin. Once grey, now hazel, his gaze holds past territory, past food to memory and meeting. A giraffe he approaches stares before bolting. Shrills of alarm through the jungle. He deserts the ancestors’ feeding ground. He grazes now, like another, calmer species. At…
Made a fool of. She rose to that. She would not be made a fool of. She looked down at the tennis court. She couldn't hear any of their noises through the window. The girl was good, played like a man, concentrating, sweating. Coiled for her backhand. Whipped it across with top spin. He had…
At first you will know her as yours only by a vague contrariness That characterizes everyone else you love, among others you and myself. You will see in her your marriage — that is there will be more Of her mother than you thought you bargained for. You will find her set of mind, her…
And one other thing, Fear not she is frail This young girl though she’s slender You’ve seen the pitless bee Swoop hard in his flower — But no stem’s ever snap’t Take her firmly. No half-hesitant pressing’s Gotten all the sugarcane’s Sap. — Anonymous from the Subhàsitàvalì
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