Isn’t this the human condition? Dorothea opens the notebooks expecting genius, the project to which she’s subjugated her life and not insignificant intellect. George Eliot, ungainly and plain, knowing her own mind, creates the condition for crushing disappointment, the house of cards collapsing, banality, Casaubon less than a mere mortal, now dead, chaining Dodo to his desk and dusty scribbles. Worse than the loss of fortunes, we all sit watching as the furniture is carried out, piece by beautiful piece, packed in the wagon and driven away, leaving us only to our selves.

I placed a jar in Tennessee, And round it was, upon a hill. It made the slovenly wilderness Surround that hill. — — Wallace Stevens I worked so hard to penetrate this poem, which the professor said was about art, about a made thing reorganizing the world. The poem itself …

My husband places the paper in a sturdy box on his desk. My anxiety rises, lest it fall into the wrong hands. Any hands but ours are wrong. It should not have been printed — the ether where a cloud keeps words alive forever is more remote, if not safer. What…

I’ve been doing some research into the history of land ownership on our farm. I knew that it had been the Sisters of the Order of Saint Benedict’s hog farm before my husband and his first wife, along with his sister and her husband, bought it from them with the…

Aïda’s father-in-law sends word: The house near Bucha was looted but not destroyed. She asks him to take what valuables he finds, And uncover the rose bushes before he departs. With gratitude to James Jennings and the Ukrainian family in Switzerland he is sponsoring.

I cannot tell you how ashamed I feel typing that title. I admit, I never gave a thought to white supremacy in my church back in the 1970s and early 1980s. I should clarify — throughout junior high and high school I attended two churches. The primary community, which my…

I am embarrassed at how badly I underestimated Ukraine. I mean, I never thought much about Ukraine. I knew Russia had invaded and taken Crimea, in 2014, and there was a war on the border, skirmishes. …

Matthew 4:11 The drought has made a desert of our land: drained the ponds, displaced turtles and frogs, stressed the trees until they yellow and drop their leaves early, in August. The chemo has made a desert of my body: hands burning with the oils of the mildest pepper, blood carrying less oxygen until fatigue grounds me on the couch. The dead leaves rattle, the chickens chase grasshoppers, take dirt baths, gather around the joint of the leaky hose. Like everyone in the world, I am tired.

“If I don’t love you baby… Grits ain’t groceries, Eggs ain’t poultry, And Mona Lisa was a man.” “All Around the World/Grits Ain’t Groceries” written by Titus Turner I was struck by this Blues number this morning, written by Titus Turner and a hit in 1955 for Little Willie John…