“I dream of you walking at night along the streams
of the country of my birth, warm blooms and the nightsongs
of birds opening around you as you walk.
You are holding in your body the dark seed of my sleep.”
– Wendell Berry
The poet Mary Kellogg came over this afternoon so I could take some photo of her to send to O Magazine, which is thinking about a fashion spread and story on “Poets On The Rise.” Mary has published two successful and popular books of poetry, “My Place On Earth,” and “Whistling Woman.” I met Mary five years ago and she told me that she had been writing poetry since she was eleven years old, but had never shown it to anyone. She showed it to Maria and I and she is now at work on her third volume. Mary is a beautiful and radiant and gifted person.
She will be 81 in a few months, runs her own 30-acre farm not far away and always looks a bit puzzled if anyone ever asks her if she needs any help. Not yet, she says. There may come a day, but not yet. If such a day does come, Mary will handle it as gracefully as she handles life.
Publishing her poems was one of the good moves in my life, and now O Magazine is sniffing around to consider Mary for its photo spread on up and coming poets. Hope she makes it. Mary is a poet on the rise if I have ever met one, and a constant inspiration for me and for Maria. The sun cooperated and Mary, as always, looked great.
We are back from Vermont, and a sweet interlude at our favorite old inn, the Grafton Inn. We stayed in a room that Paul Newman loved, and it was wonderful and safe. We returned to the world, to bills, phone messages, realities and are making the transition, as one always has to do with life. Going to the dentist to finish up my root canal, and then some writing and thinking about New Years. Mostly I am grateful for my life, especially for Maria, who has brought light to my world, and for Emma, who I love and admire. More later. New Years is just a date on the calendar, but it is, like anything, what you make of it and bring to it.
“Sometimes our life reminds me of a forest
in which there is a graceful clearing
and in that opening a house,
an orchard and garden,
comfortable shades, and flowers
red and yellow in the sun, a pattern
made in the light for the light to return to.
The forest is mostly dark, its ways
to be made anew day after day, the dark richer than the light and more blessed,
provided we stay brave enough to keep going in.”
— Wendell Berry
All over the country, in a nation that saves banks and car dealers but not libraries, you can hear the cries as libraries budgets, staff and hours are being cut. Libraries represent the best of us, and as they fare, so do we. Our national soul is on the line. I’m heading out in January for a week-long support-the-libraries tour through the Northeast. The Free Library of Northampton Township, Bucks County, Pa., needs some love and attention. We are on our way. The library director has resigned and isn’t being replaced, and the state of Pennsylvania has just cut the library’s funding by 51 per cent.
I’ll be there at 7 p.m., January 26 to talk about “Rose In A Storm” my writing, grieving for animals and anything else anybody wants to talk about it. I love Bucks County and am very eager to get to the library. Lots of driving around that week, but can’t imagine a better cause. The next day I’ll be at the Rochambeau Branch of the Providence Public Library, my hometown library. More details of the trip to come.
Libraries everywhere need help, donations, volunteers, support. While corporations sit on their trillions, libraries do much more with a lot less.
