April Lindner

Photo by Elijah St. Amant As much of the world hunkers in lockdown, waiting out the coronavirus pandemic, I find my life has grown quieter and the small things--a garter snake in the iris patch, three turkey vultures poised on a neighbor's roof--have the power to sooth.  That's why this poem seems perfect for this moment in history: The Peace of Wild Things When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.  I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting in their light.  For a time I rest in the grace of the world and am free.   --Wendell Berry

On the Pulaski Skyway Thanks to Sharon Foley whose podcast, Journey Daily with a Compelling Poem , currently features a poem of mine, "The Trip to Brooklyn Misremembered as a Roller Coaster Ride."   

  Thanks to Bearings Online , for publishing my poem about trying--and sometimes failing--to be kind to the mammals who only want to share our homes and our crumbs.

Miles  It's been a while since I've blogged here.  A looooong while.   While I wasn't here, I've been moving, writing, and teaching.  I've also been fostering dogs.  One was Moka, a labby girl who went on to find a perfect forever home.  Moka The second, Miles, a foxy little chihuahua corgi mix (we think) quickly squiggled his way into our hearts.  AKA Worm We wound up adopting him...so now he's a part of our pack.  He's what they call a foster failure--or maybe we're the failures.  At any rate, now that we've got three, our fostering days are over for the forseeable future Miles came from Little Dog Lifeboat .  And Moka came up north from Southern Comfort Animal Rescue , which has adoption events every three weeks.  In fact, there's still time to catch the wagging tail end of this weekend's rescue , at Rosedale Mills in Pennington, New Jersey .  Both rescues do amazing work finding homes for deserving dogs.  

Thanks to Bearings Online for publishing this poem.   March of the Ladybugs One at a time, they’re good luck charms, quaint as a cartoon greeting-card                    neat dome like a candy button.  At daybreak one circumnavigates the waterglass, His glossy shell cracks to sprout waxpaper wings. As the window brightens, more collect in its skim of condensation. They cluster on the ceiling, red and random as measles. Every so often one is moved to buzz in sudden spirals, and land with a clatter on a lampshade. or bungle into my hair.  Their ranks swell, an army of redcoats. Once doctors mashed them to cure toothaches; farmers entreated Our Lady to send in scarlet swarms-- rosary beads spilling from the sky.  Harvest in, they’d clear the fields and burn the vines. By afternoon The multitude has flown. One straggler still scouts for water, wandering the wasteland of my desk.

This summer, it seems my whole life is under construction. We've been living in limbo while the house we're hoping to buy in our beloved Lambertville has been taking shape.   I've been doing a lot of driving back and forth to the house to watch it grow into the next phase of its already quite long life. The process has been exciting and sometimes fraught.   Surprised by asbestos Then there's my usual summer preoccupation: writing.  With several novels underway at once, I've been trying to figure out where to take my writing next.  I've been researching and drafting what I suspect will turn out to be a Middle Grade novel and rethinking a YA novel that didn't quite cohere. I've also been turning back to my first love, poetry, putting together the first manuscript of poems in a really long time. Surprised by dogwood Most of all, I've been grappling with what kind of writer I want to become.  How should I spend the next part o