Water Music

The earth has its voices and songs. It has its own languages crafted over millennia through slow and patient processes, its dialects peculiar to geological regions or areas of weather, to places of particular precipitation. The earth has its voices and songs just as we have our own, a music born of place, notes threaded together by winds … Continue reading Water Music

A Sort of Homecoming

And you know it's time to go Through the sleet and driving snow Across the fields of mourning Lights in the distance And you hunger for the time Time to heal, desire time - U2, 'A Sort of Homecoming' Whenever I monitor birds on the lower hills I pass what is left of the village. I stay … Continue reading A Sort of Homecoming

The Circumference of a Second

To listen to an audio version of 'The Circumference of a Second' please press the play button. for Dimitris Noulis Sometimes just a few words can transport us. A friend had emailed me the first line of a 17th century poem by Henry Vaughan, and I found myself reading it over and over: I saw … Continue reading The Circumference of a Second

The Light of Birds, Evros Delta

To listen to an audio version of 'The Light of Birds' please click on the play button. They're returning, wave after wave of them spilling over the delta of the Evros River. The sky is streaked with sharp-winged falcons, with storks whitening the meadows when they descend, with flocks of ibis that close like black umbrellas on … Continue reading The Light of Birds, Evros Delta

The Wonder of Ordinary Places

To listen to an audio version of 'The Wonder of Ordinary Places' click the play button. Many of the world’s landscapes are lost to us. They’ve vanished from our lives, become extinct. But they’ve disappeared not because of urban sprawl or the pressures of tourist development. They haven’t disappeared due to deforestation or a toxic accumulation … Continue reading The Wonder of Ordinary Places