The language is not hard to understand – not difficult at all – the ground says I will catch you if you – when you – fall. The language is not hard to understand – not difficult at all –…
Pepper and Poems
115 Articles
115
The poet Jane Hirshfield recently came to my attention. Imagine Mary Oliver with an edge, steel in her veins. I’m most of the way through Hirshfield’s new collection, The Asking, which draws from her work dating back to 1972 and…
His hand shook as he told the very short story of the angel who came to earth with a torch and pail. I wasn’t going to tell you this, he said, smiling, but I’ve decided to. This is what Richard…
This weekend I’m at a seminar hosted by the Center for Action and Contemplation, Richard Rohr’s spiritual think tank in Albuquerque. A stroke, a heart attack, and cancer treatments have taken their toll on Rohr. He was rolled onto stage…
“Oh, Mary!” begins at a fever pitch – loud, over the top, brassy – and stays that way. Imagine Mary Todd Lincoln as a frustrated cabaret dancer and her husband as a frustrated gay man, each part played to comic…
A grocery chain in Iceland – Bónus Supermarkets – began selling a slim volume of poetry at its counters on eternal “special offer” several decades ago. It became the best-selling volume of poetry in the history of Iceland, and I…
I’ve taken myself to the beach for the first time in a long while: craving the sea. It does not disappoint, doing the same thing it always does. Keeping its promises. Today, holding its temper: a cheerful churn at the…
Seen at the North Carolina Botanical Garden, and Recently Spring ran wild loose ribbons in her hair a riot of pink and purple and red and yellow and blue. One day, she knew, she’d leap into the strong green arms…
Read this Mary Oliver poem at your own risk, friends. I had forgotten that Oliver can be so gruesome as she pins down the butterfly… The Rabbit Scatterghost, it can’t float away. And the rain, everybody’s brother, won’t help. And…