Thank you very muches to all those who participated during Love of Nature Nature of Love Month on WIZ. The list includes:
D. H. Lawrence
Rainer Maria Rilke
Th. (Eric Jepson)
Adam K. K. Figueira
Laura Craner
Andrew Marvell
An esteemed company!
I almost forgot! Today, WIZ turns one. Happy Birthday to us! I’ve been preoccupied and haven’t come up with any fun thing to do in celebration, but I would like to run out a line of thanks yous.
Thanks–deep, ever-flowing thanks–to Wm Morris, for helping me open this space and for providing solid support.
Thanks, WIZ readers, [...]
“Pray, my dear aunt, what is the difference in matrimonial affairs, between the mercenary and the prudent motive? Where does discretion end, and avarice begin? Last Christmas you were afraid of his marrying me, because it would be imprudent; and now, because he is trying to get a girl with only ten thousand pounds, you [...]
(Clinton F. Larson, 1919-1994)
He sought to grow rare orchids up bright air
On theory they were closer to the sun.
Such trailing gardens of the blue compare
To virga with refractions overrun.
And since these curious blossoms manifest
Some edgeless artifice their vines conceal,
All fanciers must their clayey stuff divest
To see what Sol his tropic buds congeal.
His mazes trellis on [...]
(for James)
When the little girls on the playground
threatened the boys with a kissing,
and they, slick with danger, ran
like wry hares, he made short work of it,
got ready his cheeks, mistook a step.
Now such generosity is lost on them,
his awkwardness thought sabotage,
and untimely glances which have
followed him since loving boyhood
turned like Actaeon’s hounds.
It has been harder [...]
Saturday night, my husband and I made a last minute run to the only grocery store within 22 miles before it closed at 9 p.m. On the return trip, I drove with the SUV’s highbeams on, because we live on a country road whereon we’re likely to come across animals on the pavement, everything from [...]
(for my father)
Late afternoon came floating down the creek.
The Appalachia air chilled gradually;
Ringlets formed round shivers on a pool
Where mayflies burst its skin, and theirs, some trailing
Papery shells behind them in their flight.
Brown trout missiled the sylphs, arched and slapped
The surface, falling back, while I cast toward
The trembling pool, slowly wound my line in,
Looked up. [...]
Pallor gold on the mountains;
Spring gold in the west;
Rosy gold on her away-turned face:
She is honey-tressed.
Amber sets the shadows;
The heifer’s withers gild;
Finches sparkle under leaves;
And the freshet’s filled.
Dionysus gifted me.
Gold fills her eyes like shells fill the sea.
Small flower in a garden, secret from me;
Primrose drifting on a saffron sea.
When yellow apples gorge the trees
And [...]
(for Saul)
My son, seven, says, in passing,
“To travel at the speed of light
You must become light.”
From the apparent blue, this bolt
Blasts me from terrain
Of rolling, languid thought,
I am forced to leap by precipice
And, after thrills of floundering,
Beat together wings of suspense
And impetus, igniting flight.
He is only seven, and it is my duty.
Breathless, I ask:
“Where did [...]
Brown-eyed boy tosses his black head,
Pokes his nose through the corral bars
Sniffing, searching for the apple slice
He knows, he knows I hide behind me.
I laugh, he bobs his head, steps close,
Knickers softly, lowers his head near my face.
He loves me for the apple he smells,
Its dappled red and yellow skin
Hints at dusty summer noons,
Evokes grass [...]