Life
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According to The Encyclopedia Britannica, Alfred, Lord Tennyson took nearly eighteen years to fully process the grief of losing his good friend Arthur Henry Hallam. We find this in his elegiac masterpiece, In Memoriam A. H. H. While it may be Tennyson’s greatest work and certainly earned him renown for its “131 sections, … prologue,…
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Believe it or not, I still use CDs. In fact, in looking for a used Chevy Suburban to replace the one I lost, the lack of CD player in the more modern cars has been a big turn off. I know: get with the times, Anastasi! But I have to admit, I want to hold…
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Unsurprisingly, the new year did not usher in a slower season of life. Any resolution to visit The Deepening Ground more regularly to leave poetic breadcrumbs that lead out of the suffocating press of modernity failed within days of the calendar flipping to 2026. That’s not to say that I wasn’t writing nor that I…
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My wife’s cousin sent this poem as her Christmas wish for us this year. She received it from a friend who said that no other poem better captures his wishes for his family and friends for the coming year. I love that as we end the old and welcome the new, this poem helps us…
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For months, I’ve carried the call of the Sandhill Cranes in my heart. They were passing over my home on an early Saturday morning as I was leaving to proctor the SATs at my high school. It was a divine interruption – a hard stop on the feverish rush of modern life. Since then, I’ve…
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Sometimes I feel like I’ve forgotten how to be a poet or how to compose songs. In the silence that seems like writer’s block, those critical internal voices grow deafening. For example, since early October, I’ve been trying to wrestle my thoughts into a sonnet. That otherworldly rattling call of the Sandhill Cranes crossing overhead…
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Over the summer, we experienced a substantial lack of rain. Now this isn’t England, but Grove City usually has its share of rainy days. We savor the sunny ones as they seem to be as rare as European White Truffles. And yet, I was far too busy to notice. As the summer came to a…
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Missing in action. That’s how I’ve felt, creatively (and emotionally), for the past two months. Little time to pay attention. Little time to be astonished. Little time to tell about it. I’ve failed to live by Mary Oliver’s instructions for living a life. Fall has always been a season brimming with activity: school starts, I…
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As summer’s curtain drops and the stage resets for another academic year, I return to my only camping excursion in late June with my second youngest son. We gathered with a group of friends and fathers to camp and kayak. The food and fellowship were wonderful and our time on the Allegheny River, including stops…
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I’ve come back to Mary Oliver after she popped up in the book I’m reading for enjoyment between preparing for school and repairing our fleet of cars! The book is Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman (I know: enjoyment?), and Mary Oliver shows up on page 104. Of course, this sent…
the deepening ground 