The Writer’s Desk

We tell our students to be smart scientists, to carefully observe the world around them. But what does that really mean?

Tight buds loosen / and tiny fists bring / gifts: new leaves/ pea green and shy.

Help wanted: sturdy individual / interested in grassroots work / at a number of rugged locations …

Owl pellets are about the unlikeliest subject for a love poem—maybe that’s why this poem has always been one of my personal favorites.

You said you / loved me / that afternoon / behind the woodpile

This is a poem about a snow angel, but in another way it could also be a poem about poetry itself.

On the first warm morning / she’s kneeling in the dirt, / smiling and humming / like she does making bread.

Soon as the baby gets born / before she’s two hours old / people start dividing her up …

She’s one year old. One tooth. / A total pudge.

A visit to the family cemetery is the subject of this poem. There are three generations. What makes this poem work, I think, is the different ways they each view it.  

Swirl in butterflies. / Whip in bees.

One last picture before we head off in different directions.