September 2010
3 posts
descants on happiness by Merle Bachman
happiness, brief disturbance fluttered paper tangent to a gathered warmth; the new sounds of birds, a.m. and p.m.; like water remembering to surface, pool inside the cracks a vacant light touches equally a tin roof, distended maple, car window, blonde hair this is how it begins in strips peeled away * striving to be happy “it’s all I want,” he said ...
Mockingbirds by Mary Oliver
This morning two mockingbirds in the green field were spinning and tossing the white ribbons of their songs into the air. I had nothing better to do than listen. I mean this seriously. In Greece, a long time ago, an old couple opened their door to two strangers who were, it soon appeared, not men at all, but gods. It is my favorite story— how the old couple had almost...
In Waking Words by Dorothy Barresi
for instance, for instance My Mother asleep at the kitchen table is a commuter except she is already at home, at work. Her cheek skims a basket of married socks, gold toe, green toe, heel and toe, and I am tapdancing in her big belly, my hands making S-shapes in the water. Also brothers orbit there, or the idea of them encoded, like sputniks. But who wound the pets up so tight? It is the fifties,...
