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Theodore the Poet
As a boy, Theodore, you sat for long hoursOn the shore of the turbid SpoonWith deep-set eye staring at the door of the crawfish’s burrow,Waiting for him to appear, pushing ahead,First his waving antennae, like straws of hay,And soon his body, colored like soap-stone,Gemmed with eyes of jet.And you wondered in a trance of thoughtWhat…
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My Own Two Feet: A Memoir by Beverly Cleary
I read this memoir back in May of 2021. I just finished reading My Own Two Feet: A Memoir (1995) by Beverly Cleary. It was an absolutely wonderful reading experience! I felt immersed in her voice and in the unfolding of her life. She seems a lot like how I might have imagined her to…
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Morning haiku
Morning of new snowBranches draped in soft dreamingFrom this moment on
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Vestigia nulla retrorsum
I’ve been reading The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle, and am greatly enjoying the adventure of it. It is kind of making me feel like a boy again, tramping along the banks of Apple Creek and dreaming of adventure.
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An old book jot…Sappho
This is a reaction I typed up after reading a collection of the poetry of Sappho. I finished reading this back in May of 2021. I’m going back and adding these sorts of reactions to the “book jots” section of the website. I thought I’d throw it up as a post, too, even though it’s…
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Cricket
The silence withinThe noise of a normal dayListen, a cricket
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A Conversation
I read the chapter titled ‘Mutiny’ in The Brothers Karamazov yesterday morning. It reminded me greatly of the story The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin; so much so that it seems to be an answer, in the form of fiction, to the question posed by Ivan: “And are you…
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Haiku
Here is a haiku I wrote this morning upon looking out the window. The weather has changed; the cool and damp of late fall has settled in. Yellow smoke of pinesFiltering the morning lightRain will be heavy
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Whaling
This set of whaling-themed tobacco cards from Ogden’s was released in 1927. It’s a 25 card set with beautiful images of ships, whales, sailors, and equipment. I can’t help but be reminded of Melville’s great chronicle of the sea, and Ahab’s obsessive quest for the solitary leviathan called by sailors Moby Dick. “But as for…
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True Bug
A Western Conifer Seed Bug (Leptoglossus occidentalis), from the Hemiptera order, I saw on Monday.