Across the Page

The Poetry Stretch, hosted at Miss Rumphius Effect, is to write a poem about a childhood game. Here’s my attempt:

“pan,” “pen,” “pens,” “penst?”
“sun,” “side,” “sides” –
As sand runs through the hourglass,
my pencil, frantic, glides…
I dream of Boggle glory –
a word that doubles back
and uses all the letters
available to hacks
like me, who love to play this [...]

Some time ago, Karen Edmisten mentioned The Mouse of Amherst in a Poetry Friday post. I ordered it immediately, but not until yesterday did the right time come for Elizabeth Spires’ 61-page imaginative introduction to Emily Dickinson, accented by Claire Nivola’s delicate drawings. The ultimate proof came at the end, when my 8-year-old exclaimed, “Let’s [...]

Earlier this week, I went looking for my grandfather’s obituary. I couldn’t remember the details of his military service. I never found the obituary, but I did end up sorting through my box full of old journals and throwing some of them away. There were just some things in there — old struggles, chapters now [...]

My youngest has hatched a plan to buy the “red library” (one of our three local branches) for us to live in one day.
Here’s our future home:

Since we always call it “the red library,” I don’t think she’s ever even heard its full “official” name: “Your Home Public Library.” It should provide us with spacious [...]

These are the days when Birds come back –
A very few — a Bird or two –
To take a backward look.
These are the days when skies resume
The old — old sophistries of June –
A blue and gold mistake.
Oh fraud that cannot cheat the Bee –
Almost thy plausibility
Induces my belief.
Till ranks of seeds their witness bear [...]

I’ve been revisiting George MacDonald lately. I knew him first as the one whose Phantastes C.S. Lewis credited with “baptizing his imagination.” Then I explored some of his children’s books, and more recently a Gothic romance. Slowly I’ve been accumulating impressions and experiences of this writer.
I didn’t realize that he was also a well-respected [...]

My eleventh anniversary is this weekend.
Last year was our tenth. A nice round number, ten. It felt significant. Eleven is somehow anticlimactic.
Nevertheless, I’m happy with our eleven years. We’ve known each other much longer than that, actually…

His mother brought my mother a receiving blanket when she visited the hospital at my birth. Our eleven years [...]

Our homeschool year begins in a few weeks, and I’m trying to get myself in gear.
I’m following a classical approach for my two daughters. For the most part, this approach makes the most sense to me. But every once in awhile, that glorious parody of the whole concept pops into my mind — the [...]

The Swing (Robert Louis Stevenson)
How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!
Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
Rivers and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside—
Till I look down on the [...]

I’ve progressed into Ezekiel in my Bible-reading. These prophetic books frustrate any attempt by my analytical or “literary” mind to file them neatly away, but there are passages of great beauty and power. This morning I reached chapter 10, and found it very moving. It culminates with Ezekiel seeing the same complex and awesome vision [...]