Bells mark time, warn, call to prayeror action, mourn, stir, enchant the air,warn those on foot of what’s behind,announce real presence,open doors between floors,proclaim, “they’re off!”struck by a tongue,hung from a crown staple,pulled, shocked, rolled, rung.That slant poet Louise Glück,feared, she said, famerendered her like Longfellow,a popular poet, unserious,“a frog . . . to an... Continue Reading →

Bob asks most people to call him Robert.“Bob is gone,” he said to his mother,“he doesn’t exist anymore,”but Jane insists on calling her son Bob,and so I do, too, we’re together so much.Before he started hearing voices,before his illness,in his mid-teens,Bob attended a schoolfor the musically gifted.The clarinet and classical guitarwere his principal instruments.He still... Continue Reading →