This is the sixth in a series of columns that feature a much-loved poem, and a second poem that speaks to, or resonates with, that poem. This week’s poem is “Another Dog’s Death,” written by John Updike around 1989. The Poetry Foundation states, “An acclaimed and award-winning writer of fiction, essays, and reviews, John Updike has also been writing poetry for most of his life. Growing up in Pennsylvania, his
Thought became presence, like a shell on the beach, like the flickering word of a gull under a cold thunder moon. I floated on the blue water, a reliquary of things from the past, dreaming of a moment of conception on a glittering moonlit bay.
![Spring Day [Bath], US Represented](https://i0.wp.com/usrepresented.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/underwater-porttait-with-tattoo-1.jpg?resize=685%2C425&ssl=1)
This is one in a series of columns that examines a much-loved poem, and poems that speak to, or resonates with, that poem. Featured is “Spring Day [Bath],” crafted by Amy Lowell (1874-1925) in 1914 or 15. The Poetry Foundation states: “An oft-quoted remark by poet Amy Lowell applies to both her determined personality and her sense of humor: ‘God made me a business woman,’ Lowell is reported to have quipped, ‘and I
This is part of a series of columns that feature a much-loved poem, and other poems that speaks to, or resonate with, the first poem. This week’s poem is “Requiem,” written by Robert Louis Stevenson. This poem was carved into Stevenson’s gravestone. The line that attracted me was “Glad did I live and gladly die.” Some critics consider this a bold lie, but I prefer to think of it as a remarkably existential
Our love was vivid and real, a rare dream. You terrified me like a shark in a movie. I was stupid enough to think it was possible. You’ll be safe if you don’t look, I thought. You had no special powers, yet saved me every day. You wanted everything to be for the first time. But sometimes being quiet is essential, the only essential thing. As close as you were,
I peer out the sunroom window at the hydrangeas encroaching on the arborvitae, on the camelia — and just now in mid-November when the tight buds of the camelia are grasping at every bit of waning sun they can to bloom and the arborvitae is struggling to spread its branches; next month they’ll be the only green in the garden. They can’t do this by themselves. How can I disturb
