Poetry and About Poetry

The Hemlock Cup: Socrates, Athens, and the Search for the Good Life by Bettany Hughes My rating: 4 of 5 stars One part travelogue, one part history, one part philosophy, one part biography---a fascinating combination. View all my reviews

                            Today   Today, as two planes flew into the World Trade Center, I cut branches from the maple tree in front of our house.   Today, while another plane flew into the Pentagon, I cut a tall branch that grew from a low knot.   Today while the buildings collapsed and burned, I found three near-fledged cedar waxwing chicks.   They were holding tight with tiny feet to the fallen branch straining necks upwards.   Above, in the crook of a branch that had been brushed hard by the falling one, a spilt nest from which they’d come.   I took the ladder from the garage, opened it against the tree, and rebuilt the nest as best I could.   Then I carried each chick gently back to nest, small clawed feet clutching desperately to my hands.   As I moved the last, it opened its mouth as if to ask me to regurgitate a meal into its mouth.   Instead, it let out its small alarm cal

Sixkill by Robert B. Parker My rating: 4 of 5 stars Parker's last completed novel---a good one. It is sad to finish my reading and rereading of all of his detective novels. But quoting from the book: "Ain't a lot of happy endings here," he said. "There often aren't," I said. And then the last words of the novel seem appropriate to Parker's life, he being also a writer of and lover of the Western: "After the rain lifted, the world would probably seem as freshly washed as I was. The cleanliness was almost certainly illusory, or at best short-lasting. But life is mostly metaphor, anyway. "I got in my car and drove west." Thank you Robert Parker for creating some characters who live long after you. View all my reviews