Having to write one word—one letter—at a time forces me to focus. On one idea. In the moment. Writing slows my thoughts to one idea at a time. It’s like photography.
poetry
Browning’s “Karshish the Arab Physician”
Robert Browning’s “An Epistle Containing the Strange Medical Experience of Karshish, the Arab Physician” is another fine example of dramatic monologue in which the character speaking reveals things about himself he is unaware of, but through the irony of self-disclosure, the reader readily sees.
Poetry of Grief (Scholar’s Compass)
It started the day after I stepped off the plane in JFK. Twenty-four hours after my return to my home after twelve months away. It didn’t waste anytime.
Kairos — from “The Kingdom: Poems for Ordinary Time”
The wheat is full, pushing through the husks, ripe. / It overflows, lacking only / Those who yearn to harvest, / To gather and to give. . . .
Kingdom — from “The Kingdom: Poems for Ordinary Time”
This riot of lilies and sparrows, / Of pearls and trees and / Fields and fishermen, / This topsy turvy jumble