Open the Homeric Hymn to Demeter and enter the Nysian meadow, naming roses, crocuses, and beautiful violets . . . irises too, and hyacinths...

On one side of it hang small wooden clothes hangers, demure and down-turning like an old maid’s shoulders. On the other half is a row of fou...

He's an artist, still asleep under the quilt. Last night's shoes and clothes are scattered, leaving a trail back to the kitchen. I...

This morning I roll out of bed with sore hips and limp to the toilet. Surely I’m not as old as I feel, though a glance in the mirror is inco...

A short skirt is a promise. Nothing more, nothing less. Guys view promises as sacred trusts; women know promises can easily evaporate, like ...

mist eases below a windbreak hawthorn an alphorn grips air forest walk. struggle. climb over mutilated trees, snap detached branches, crunch...

When you investigate my juicy plum, when you walk the rim of my Riesling, when you buzz me, gleefully, in the middle of a nap, I try, O fly,...

. “...I wanna hear and see / everything...” Jimi Hendrix , Up from the Skies . The rainy scent of the Tennessee Mountains on a May evenin...

Some months before the full year has passed, the family make plans. The plaque for the grave—this will be kept simple. Two river stones and ...

with his crook he navigates the rough terrain early bluegrass and white clover villagers liken the shepherd to ruddy-limbed Pan piping to ny...

. Today in the North Georgia mountains the sun’s straight up, school’s out—boarded-up shops and broken soda machines, filling stations with...

. The sky is filled with terns tonight, their red bills arrowing down into the water. Fishing boats wend their way home to the harbor, whil...

. My fiancé kept a hand printing press in his bedroom. He was a printer by trade and bought the press to make extra money. Two nights a week...

. It’s suddenly evening as you slip out of the bright afternoon and into the bamboo’s dark, luxuriant corridors. With so little light reac...

. at noon it rises out of thin air and glides from afar into the garden . through the valley wind sifts pollen from the vessels of daylil...

. “Go West, young man!” —John B. Soule, Horace Greeley, Thomas Fuller and possibly others, ca. 1851. . The Midwest: My high school sweet-h...

. Winter school holidays—my two great-grandsons are in town to stay with their Daddy. I take them, as I do every year, to the movies. And t...

. On my arrival the remnants of a party: balloons on the veranda, a piece of chocolate cake in the pantry, birthday cards on the dresser an...

. Clusters of grapes are stenciled on a periwinkle watering can in my aunt’s kitchen. Two rusted hand pruners and the old rosewood harvesti...

. Cannery Row is shop-crazy. I skip the trinketry, chocolatery, and gadgetry, and then hop past the batikry, crotchetry, and towelry. A far...

. My husband is glancing through some travel guides when he says: ‘Listen, one of the must-do activities in Honningsvåg is a King Crab Safar...

. They create an aesthetically-pleasing, harmonious pattern. Neatly stacked columns. These wooden palettes are tethered tightly to the flatb...

. where wall meets ceiling a gossamer web on spackled plaster . O.K., first off, she wasn’t “Little,” they just called her that to be funny,...

“Neil!” she yells from the center of the playground, “Neil!” It’s late afternoon, almost dusk, the swing sets and slides are deserted, all t...

For a year before we found a house to rent near the army base, we stayed in a room in the enlisted men’s barracks. All our household goods w...