A Map of Sicily by Marie Luise Kaschnitz I’ll draw the outline for you. It’s a wing From the shoulder of the victory goddess. The side view is a chunk of rugged mountain Arrested in the brightness of the sun, The sea around it covering the plain With sand and seaweed and with schools ofContinue reading “A Map of Sicily by Marie Luise Kaschnitz”
Tag Archives: Travel
Things to Do Around Seattle by Gary Snyder
Things to Do Around Seattleby Gary Snyder Hear phone poles hum.Catch garter snakes. Make lizard tails fall off.Biking to Lake Washington, see muddy little fish.Peeling old bark off Madrone to see the clean red new bark.Cleaning fir pitch off your hands.Reading books in the back of the University District goodwill.Swimming in Puget Sound below theContinue reading “Things to Do Around Seattle by Gary Snyder”
Fairbanks Under the Solstice by John Haines
Fairbanks Under the Solsticeby John Haines Slowly, without sun, the day sinkstoward the close of December.It is minus sixty degrees. Over the sleeping houses a densefog rises—smoke from banked fires,and the snowy breath of an abyssthrough which the cold townis perceptibly falling. As if Death were a voice made visible,with the power of illumination… Now,Continue reading “Fairbanks Under the Solstice by John Haines”
A Walrus Tusk from Alaska by Alfred Corn
A Walrus Tusk from Alaskaby Alfred Corn Arp might have done a version of it in white marble,the model held aloft, in approximate awe:this touch cross-section oval of tusk,dense and cool as fossil cranium— preliminary bloodshed condonableif Inupiat hunters on King Island mayfollow as their fathers did the bark of a husky,echoes ricocheted from roughed-upContinue reading “A Walrus Tusk from Alaska by Alfred Corn”
Letter from Shuyak Island, Alaska by Helena Minton
Letter from Shuyak Island, Alaskaby Helena Minton To my grandmother I liked to sit at your dressing table.Whiskey-colored perfumes smelled of dust.The photograph beside the mirror showeda serious face, a man in pince-nezwho died the year I was born. Nights, lying on the fold-out couch,I was surrounded: mahogany, Chinese lamps,and paintings of forestsboxed in by bigContinue reading “Letter from Shuyak Island, Alaska by Helena Minton”
Hokusai in Iowa by Dan Campion
I no longer remember I am here there being no mountain and I at its foot reading the sea-level poems about me to Grant Wood whose denim bib rustles like a skiff’s sail perhaps waves in dirt and tassels really are like waves of the sea so long as we do not think about whoseContinue reading “Hokusai in Iowa by Dan Campion”
Indian Summer by Diane Glancy
Indian Summerby Diane Glancy There’s a farm auction up the road.Wind has its bid in for the leaves.Already bugs flurry the headlightsbetween cornfields at night.If this world were permanent,I could dance full as the squaw dresson the clothesline.I would not see winterin the square of white yard-light on the wall.But something tugs at me.The worldContinue reading “Indian Summer by Diane Glancy”
Indian River by Wallace Stevens
Indian Riverby Wallace Stevens The trade-wind jingles the rings in the nets around racks by the docks on Indian River.It is the same jingle of the water among roots under the banks of the palmettoes,It is the same jingle of the red-bird breasting the orange-trees out of the cedars.Yet there is no spring in Florida,Continue reading “Indian River by Wallace Stevens”
A Postcard from Greece by A.E. Stallings
A Postcard from Greeceby A.E. Stallings Hatched from sleep, as we slipped out of orbitRound a clothespin curve new-watered with the rain,I saw the sea, the sky, as bright as pain,That outer space through which we were to plummet.No guardrails hemmed the road, no way to stop it,The only warning, here and there, a shrine:SomeContinue reading “A Postcard from Greece by A.E. Stallings”
Jim’s All-Night Diner by James Tate
Jim’s All-Night Dinerby James Tate Solemnity around the samovarwarms the old interlopers: grief is momentarily rinsedaway. They wait as if fora certain invitation. The voices outside area panoply of scorn. These yellow thumbs haul upthe hot liquid, but whenthe cup’s drunk it is more like an orphanage.The dead letter department,the salvation army, the animal rescueContinue reading “Jim’s All-Night Diner by James Tate”
POETRY and PLACES 