Monthly Archives: April 2020

Wednesday,  April 29   “The world’s otherness is antidote to confusion” A Jesuit soul friend, Bill Pauly, who died, too young in 2006 (heart attack), gave me Mary Oliver’s New and Selected Poems, Vol 1 in 2004 when I drove to Santa … Continue reading →

Pope Francis, July 2013 on the island of Lampedusa, spoke these words to a world just getting used to him as a new world figure. Francis chose this place of horrors at sea to call attention to the violence where … Continue reading →

Friday, April 24 In 2015, the Detroit News estimated 10 million walleye migrating from Lake Erie into the Detroit River.  My web search this morning estimated c. 500,000.  Either way, that’s a lot of spawning fish.  Here’s what our April 29, … Continue reading →

Wednesday, April 22 — Three Cairns – sculpture “Cairns [are] stone structures [or markers] that identify a place of great importance.” This little boy exploring a large stone egg got me wondering the way art does. Two artists here, the … Continue reading →

Monday,  April 20   Rabindranath Tagore # 2   {Gitanjali} “When Thou commandest me to sing  .  .  .  . ” Finals week, fatigue, worries and self-doubt.  Finals week, courage, the joy of intellectual engagement.   Final exams reminded me … Continue reading →

Friday, April 17, 2020 “These things are a tiny taste of the bigness of the world. They were there before you looked; they will be there after you go. None of it depends on you.” I came across this short … Continue reading →

Wednesday, April 15  –  Mary Oliver and Pine Ridge, SD A friend sent me a Mary Oliver writing, new to me.  It doesn’t quite read like a poem.  More like two small essays connected.  They remind me of a saying-set … Continue reading →

“There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.” Thomas Merton A Birthday Note to My Sister Good morning, Mary.  I chose this amazing sentence from Thomas Merton for your birthday.   … Continue reading →

Wednesday, April 8, 2020   During these demanding times the Work Day/Hard Times List has been receiving more poems than usual.   Their authors are women and men, adults and children.  They risk fresh language that often surprises us as … Continue reading →

Monday, April 6, 2020 Maryann McLaughlin, an alumna and good friend, sent this long-famous poem (1624) to accompany her observation about the world’s present condition.  She wrote yesterday: “someone said something today about how we can’t be all about just America … Continue reading →