Don’t worry about saving these songs! And if one of our instruments breaks, it doesn’t matter. We have fallen into the place where everything is music. The strumming and the flute notes rise into the atmosphere, and even if the whole world’s harp should burn up, there will still be hidden instruments playing. So the…
We think we get over things.We don’t get over things.Or say, we get over the measlesbut not a broken heart.We need to make that distinction.The things that become part of our experiencenever become less a part of our experience.How can I say it?The way to “get over” a life is to die.Short of that, you…
A sly gift it is, that on the year’s shortest day, the sun stays longest in this house– extends the wand of its slow slant and distant squint farthest into the long depths of our wintry rooms–to touch with tremulous light, interior places it has not lit before. by Robyn Sarah As we are…
the way even the late-blooming aster succumbs to the power of frost— this is not a new story. Still, on this morning, the hollowness of the season startles, filling the rooms of your house, filling the world with impossible light, improbable hope. And so, what else can you do but let yourself be broken and…
It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing. It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for…
(after Wallace Stevens) The fortune that you seek is in another cookie, was my fortune. So I’ll be equally frank—the wisdom that you covet is in another poem. The life that you desire is in a different universe. The cookie you are craving is in another jar. The jar is buried somewhere in Tennessee. Don’t…
One morning you might wake up to realize that the knot in your stomach had loosened itself and slipped away, and that the pit of unfulfilled longing in your heart had gradually, and without your really noticing, been filled in—patched like a pothole, not quite the same as it was, but good enough. And in…
The moment your eyes are open, seize the day. Would you hold back when the Beloved beckons? Would you deliver your litany of sins like a child’s collection of sea shells, prized and labeled? “No, I can’t step across the threshold,” you say, eyes downcast. “I’m not worthy, I’m afraid, and my motives aren’t pure.…