On the Water

A year ago on this day, I came in from canoeing with my daughter on the big pond on my family's vineyard estate and wrote a short poem.  A year to the day later, as I once again have climbed the hill from the pond with my daughter, I see that that poem, "On the Water," appears in the new issue of National Review.  It reminds me that, for all that has changed in this last year, nothing has changed.

One stanza in the poem gave me some trouble and that led me to reconsider some aspects of my practice of rhyme that in turn precipitated the massive revisions that became Some Permanent Things Second Edition, Revised and Expanded, not to mention an overall as I think elevation in my sense of how meter and good poetry is to be written. I hope the causes of despair in our present moment may prove, finally, only occasions for silence and reflection, before we once again push off in search of, and with the intention of restoring, the permanent things.

​Click the picture of the pond to read "On the Water."