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Bookshop Visit//The Book Loft of German Village
It is an incontrovertible fact that any visit to a new town, city, or country demands that you visit a bookstore or two. Therefore, when my husband and I spent a few days in Columbus, OH last month I was forced to visit The Book Loft. After all, how could I possibly resist 32 rooms of books? It was an absolute maze of tiny, interconnecting rooms. The store provides maps so you can find your way around if the idea of being eternally lost in a bookstore overwhelms you though I can’t imagine why it should. Each room, for the most part, is its own category. The Book Loft also…
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A Poem for a Thursday #304
William Stafford was 48 years old when his first successful volume of poetry was published. That volume, Traveling Through the Dark, won the 1963 Book Award for Poetry. Stafford typically wrote short poems that concentrated on the ordinary bits of life. He wrote in a gentle, conversational style that pulls the reader into the inner circle of his life. Now has come, an easy time. I let itroll. There is a lake somewhereso blue and far nobody owns it.A wind comes by and a willow listens gracefully.I hear all this, every summer. I laughand cry for every turn of the world,its terribly cold, innocent spin.That lake stays blue and free;…
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It’s the Little Things
Sometimes it is not the big, expensive treats that bring us the most joy. It is the silly, little things we buy on impulse. I provide as an example this absolutely glorious vase I bought at Target a month or so ago. I walked in the doors and saw an entire shelf of him and his friends looking at me. Obviously, I could not bring them all home, even if they were only $5.00 each, but I did bring one home. He looks even more glorious with a bouquet emerging from his head. I think the ideal flowers would be fresh-picked wildflowers, jammed in haphazardly, but for now, he has…
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A Poem for a Thursday #303
Cynthia Zarin is a poet, children’s book author, and journalist. She has been a regular contributor to The New Yorker since 1983. Her poetry has been praised for “its slightly offbeat perspective on mundane, typically overlooked topics.” This morning I was walking upstairsfrom the kitchen, carrying yourbeautiful flowers, the flowers youbrought me last night, calla liliesand something else, I am notsure what to call them, white flowers,of course you had no way of knowingit has been years since I bought white flowers—but now you haveand here they are again. I was carryingyour flowers and a coffee cupand a soft yellow handbag and a bookof poems by a Chinese poet, inwhich…
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A Poem for a Thursday #302
I’ve been missing the ocean more than usual these days. The warmer weather makes me want to stroll on a beach in the evening. I love the beach when the sun is going down, the people are leaving, and the sand begins to cool. Searching for shells and sea glass in the last of the day’s light is the perfect way to spend a summer evening. Mary Oliver’s poem is about the beach in the morning which is also lovely. Basically, there is never a bad time to be by the ocean. I go down to the edge of the sea.How everything shines in the morning light!The cusp of the…
