Not yet morning

Dawn breaksĀ sometime in the future.

For now, I lie awake, insistent thrum of traffic washing up against my window, one unseen bird calling out, anticipating the day.

“Do worms hear?” I wonder as this bird (whose call I do not recognize, somewhere between cardinal and crow) breaks the pre-dawn calm with a repeated cheep … cheep … cheep. Does the early bird go hungry if it doesn’t remain quiet?

 

Mixing memory with desire: Poetry and public schools

"April is the cruellest month, ..."

IMG_1291Nearly every year on April 1, I re-read T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land.” It’s one of my favorite poems, and while I pay homage to it by quoting and requoting lines from it in conversation year-round, I also like to sit down and read it through periodically. The opening line, quoted above, is of course why I choose April 1 for this pleasure. (Also, April is National Poetry Month, so there’s another reason, though not the one that drives me.)

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Dog Songs

Tank_InstagramWe have a bunny in our back yard. Or it might be a parade of several bunnies passing through on a regular basis. We have a pond, which attracts birds, bunnies and assorted other wildlife, and of course they attract other wildlife, including at least one hawk.

All of this gives our dogs fits. And they, in turn, give us fits. Continue reading