April Lindner

Peep season! Thanks to Passager Books and the Burning Bright podcast for featuring a poem of mine this week. Being included in this spring podcast due to my spring-y first name more than makes up for all the years of people telling me I was the cruellest month.  Click on through to hear the podcast : 

Travel The railroad track is miles away,  And the day is loud with voices speaking,  Yet there isn’t a train goes by all day  But I hear its whistle shrieking. All night there isn’t a train goes by,  Though the night is still for sleep and dreaming,  But I see its cinders red on the sky,  And hear its engine steaming. My heart is warm with friends I make,  And better friends I’ll not be knowing;  Yet there isn’t a train I wouldn’t take,  No matter where it’s going.                                                                            Edna St. Vincent Millay  

Photo by Elijah St. Amant As much of the world hunkers in lockdown, waiting out the coronavirus pandemic, I find my life has grown quieter and the small things--a garter snake in the iris patch, three turkey vultures poised on a neighbor's roof--have the power to sooth.  That's why this poem seems perfect for this moment in history: The Peace of Wild Things When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.  I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting in their light.  For a time I rest in the grace of the world and am free.   --Wendell Berry

On the Pulaski Skyway Thanks to Sharon Foley whose podcast, Journey Daily with a Compelling Poem , currently features a poem of mine, "The Trip to Brooklyn Misremembered as a Roller Coaster Ride."   

  Thanks to Bearings Online , for publishing my poem about trying--and sometimes failing--to be kind to the mammals who only want to share our homes and our crumbs.

Miles  It's been a while since I've blogged here.  A looooong while.   While I wasn't here, I've been moving, writing, and teaching.  I've also been fostering dogs.  One was Moka, a labby girl who went on to find a perfect forever home.  Moka The second, Miles, a foxy little chihuahua corgi mix (we think) quickly squiggled his way into our hearts.  AKA Worm We wound up adopting him...so now he's a part of our pack.  He's what they call a foster failure--or maybe we're the failures.  At any rate, now that we've got three, our fostering days are over for the forseeable future Miles came from Little Dog Lifeboat .  And Moka came up north from Southern Comfort Animal Rescue , which has adoption events every three weeks.  In fact, there's still time to catch the wagging tail end of this weekend's rescue , at Rosedale Mills in Pennington, New Jersey .  Both rescues do amazing work finding homes for deserving...