Sabbaths - VII Again I resume the long lesson: how small a thing can be pleasing, how little in this hard world it takes to satisfy the mind and bring it to its rest. Within the ongoing havoc the woods...

THE WORDS THEY SING It's the words that sing, they soar and descend. . . . I bow to them . . . I love them, I cling to them, . I run them down, I bite into them, I...

Today The ordinary miracles begin. Somewhere a signal arrives: “Now,” and the rays come down. A tomorrow has come. Open your hands, lift them: morning rings all the doorbells; porches are cells for prayer. Religion has touched your throat. Not the...

Four Quartets, East Coker (excerpt) I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet...

All the Words All the words have leaped into air like the cards in Alice, like birds flying, forming, re- forming, swerving and rising, and each word says it is love. The cat says it is love. It says, ‘I...

One day I am sitting in my old body at my old desk reading young essays — essays sent to me by holy children of various sizes — and I can feel the joy sloshing and rising in me as...