“…then life is dead

gone underground

withered old dry

cold brown grey

clattering

in the ice blue sky.”

This collection explores the fragility, exuberance, and impermanence of life. It was written over a year in the early 1970s on a farm in Maryland. We lived in a two-story 19th-century tenant house at the edge of a large old farm. Rambles into the nearby forests and fields inspired a stark mindfulness of the transient quality of experience.

Picture these poems being typed up in an old house in the setting of a wild countryside, as shown in these photographs.

Download this PDF of the original typewritten collection.

Living Death (PDF)