It’s been too long since I’ve posted a poem. Fortunatley, a friend sent Anne Porter’s “Music” along to spur me to reflection. We have, the author of Ecclesiastes confesses, been blessed – although it sometimes can feel like a curse – by a sense of the infinite that will...

The poem that has been coming to my mind most frequently of late is Langston Hughes’ “Harlem.” Its brief, spare construction holds so much emotion and describes in profound and simple ways the tumult after the grand jury decisions in Ferguson and Staten Island. Not everyone understands...

I am a big fan of W. H. Auden’s poem For the Time Being. It’s more than a poem, of course, it’s a dramatic narrative, a poetic play, formally called an Oratorio. In fact, it’s called a Christmas Oratorio. And while I’ve always thought it reads a little better after Christmas –...

The Gospel readings for Advent begin not by anticipating the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem but instead by looking forward to the end of time and Jesus’ “second coming” in glory. Given that the church year moves toward its end with several weeks of parables looking toward judgment and then...

I had a terribly hard time finding a poem that I wanted to share on this November 1, a cold and rainy day here in Philadelphia that is also All Saints’ Day. There are plenty of “All Saints’ poems” out there, some quite beautiful. But for whatever reason, none seemed quite to fit the...

It’s a cold and rainy October Saturday morning. I will spend most of this day on the banks of the Schuylkill River at the Navy Day Regatta, trying to catch a glimpse of my son as he rows for the Unionville High School crew team. This is his first year of rowing, so the...