Peapods and Plain Rocks

"Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man." (Ben Franklin)

"When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious p...

The Education of a Poet Her pencil poised, she's ready to create, Then listens to her mind's perverse debate On whether what s...

The Summer Day Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean— the one ...

Full moon rising-- fall arrives to quell the heat of August days. lkm

Chicory and Queen Anne's lace along the road, dew already drying on this hot July day. Young rabbits play in the weeds along the tracks,...

Haiku At the window frozen with birdlust - the old tomcat. Hieroglyphs above scratched on desert cliffs, sneaker prints below. First light -...

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoe...

Continuum Some beetle trilling its midnight utterance. Voice of the scarabee, dungroller, working survivor ... I recall how each year return...

Look at six eggs in a mockingbird's nest Listen to six mockingbirds flinging follies of O-be-joyful Over the marshes and uplands. Look a...

When I Met My Muse I glanced at her and took my glasses off--they were still singing. They buzzed like a locust on the coffee table and the...

The Peace of Wild Things When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the lea...

From "O, Thou Opening, O" Stand by a slow stream: Hear the sigh of what is. Be a pleased rock On a plain day. --Theodore Roethke