Starlings in Winter

Starlings in Winter

Chunky and noisy,but with stars in their black feathers,they spring from the telephone wireand instantly they are acrobatsin the freezing wind.And now, in the theater of air,they swing over buildings, dipping and rising;they float like one stippled starthat...
First Snow

First Snow

First Snow The snow began here this morning and all day continued, its white rhetoric everywhere calling us back to why, how, whence such beauty and what the meaning; such an oracular fever! flowing past windows, an energy it seemed would never ebb, never settle less...
Inexplicable Value

Inexplicable Value

Content Warning: discussion of sexual trauma and abuse by parent (mother)   A year ago I responded on Twitter to a hashtag, #NotOK, created by author Kelly Oxford, and spoke publicly about the sexual trauma I’d experienced in the years before I turned 21....
Why I Wake Early

Why I Wake Early

Why I Wake Early by Mary Oliver Hello, sun in my face. Hello, you who make the morning and spread it over the fields and into the faces of the tulips and the nodding morning glories, and into the windows of, even, the miserable and crotchety– best preacher that ever...
The Journey

The Journey

The Journey by Mary Oliver   One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice– though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. “Mend my life!” each...