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October ended in melancholy. I had been entertaining depression for at least a week, allowing him to raid my cupboards, sleep in my bed, run my life, and steal from my bank account. Melancholy, or depression, may be associated with the color blue, but I was running in…
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Modern miracles exist; we’ve just become too numb to recognize them. Whether or not you profess faith, the miracle of conception remains a scientific fact. To read about all the conditions necessary for conception to take place successfully and then all the steps in the process leading up…
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“Denounce the government and embracethe flag. Hope to live in that freerepublic for which it stands.” Wendell Berry, “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front” Though I’ve referenced this poem multiple times on my site, I don’t believe I’ve ever posted it in full. With election day upon us…
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You absolutely must listen to Malcolm Guite discuss the poem and read it to fully enjoy this autumnal experience. Life has been too full to write, but the three minutes you spend on this post will be well worth your time as we celebrate my favorite season of…
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Personally, I love the look of gabion retaining walls, but the work of filling them can be exhausting. We had a lot of bricks and old paving stones to begin the process, leaving the nicer looking landscape rocks for the visible sides. But when you have nearly twenty-two…
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One of the joys of being a teacher lies in the different duties we absorb to fill up any free time we might waste preparing lessons or grading student work. Of course that’s not really the case; we all have duties to perform. It’s just hard, sometimes, when…
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Many poets speak of the challenge of being a poet, but few have captured the sense of being out of place and misunderstood like Richard Wilbur in his translation of Charles Baudelaire’s stunning poem from “The Flowers of Evil.” My wife shared it with me tonight, having heard…
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The fragility of life surrounds us. It’s easy to numb ourselves to it or be inoculated by fleeting pleasures. But the reality of death remains. Does that mean I spend all my time living in despair, fearing the quiet feet of death? Of course not. Life is beautiful…
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On the eve of beginning my twenty-fifth year as a teacher, I am reminded of Billy Collins, looking back on a long career in the following poem. I haven’t taken the time to total all the students I’ve taught over the years, but I’m sure they would populate…
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We interrupt this pizza night to bring you a special guest: a Cooper’s Hawk. Admittedly, I’m not 100% sure that our visitor was a Cooper’s Hawk. My fellow writer and friend James and I spent part of our most recent Dunkin’ Drafting evening searching allaboutbirds.org trying to identify…
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the deepening ground 