April 2014

Picking Up Pinecones

          by  Mary Ruefle

I light a few candles, so

the moon is no longer alone.

My secret heart wakes

inside its draped cage

and cracks a song.

After a life of imagining,

I notice the ceiling.

It is painted blue

with a border of pinecones.

I’ve spent my life in a forest.

Picking up new things,

will it never end?

 from Trances of the Blast, published by Wave Books, 2013

Old Frog Pond Farm & Studio is sponsoring a free public reading by Mary Ruefle, as she receives the 14th annual Robert Creeley Award on Wednesday, April 16 at 7:30 p.m.  The reading is at the Dragonfly Theater, R.J. Grey Junior High, 16 Charter Road, Acton, MA. 

Mary Ruefle is the author of many books of poetry and prose, including Selected Poems; A Little White Shadow; and Madness, Rack, and Honey. She is the recipient of an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Poetry Society of America’s William Carlos Williams Book Award, a Guggenheim fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, and a Whiting Award.