Reading Aloud to My Father I chose the book haphazardfrom the shelf, but with Nabokov’s firstsentence I knew it wasn’t the thingto read to a dying man:The cradle rocks above an abyss, it began,and common...

follow too muchthe devices and desires of my own heart.”Already the curves in the roadare familiar to me, and the mountainin all kinds of light, treating all people the same.and when I come over the...

OtherwiseI got out of bed on two strong legs. It might have been otherwise. I ate cereal, sweet milk, ripe, flawless peach. It might have been otherwise. I took the dog uphill to the birch...

The poet’s job is to put into words those feelings we all have that are so deep, so important, and yet so difficult to name, to tell the truth in such a beautiful way, that...

HappinessThere’s just no accounting for happiness,or the way it turns up like a prodigalwho comes back to the dust at your feethaving squandered a fortune far away.And how can you not forgive?You make a feast...

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoopin the oats, to air in the lunglet evening come.Let it come, as it will, and don’tbe afraid. God does not leave uscomfortless, so let evening come.

We Let the Boat DriftI set out for the pond, crossing the ravine where seedling pines start up like sparks between the disused rails of the Boston and Maine.The grass in the field would make...