balalaika (băl-ə-LĪ-kə) Definition (Noun) A musical instrument of the guitar kind, with a triangular body, popular in Russia and other Slav countries. In Context "Every new scene was accompanied by the ghastly twanging of a balalaika, a sound that gave the action a touch of the Devil." Anatoly Smeliansky, The Russian Theatre After Stalin, 1999.
Winter Walter de la Mare And the robin flew Into the air, the air, The white mist through; And small and rare The night-frost fell Into the calm and misty dell. And the dusk gathered low, And the silver moon and stars On the frozen snow Drew taper bars, Kindled winking fires In the hooded briers. And the sprawling Bear Growled deep in the sky; And Orion's hair Streamed sparkling by: But the North sighed low, "Snow, snow, more snow!"
“Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art” BY JOHN KEATS Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art— Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite, The moving waters at their priestlike task Of pure ablution round earth's human shores, Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask Of snow upon the mountains and the moors— No—yet still stedfast, still unchangeable, Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast, To feel for ever its soft fall and swell, Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, Still, still to hear her [...]
Book of the Month: A Promised Land by Barack Obama (2020) Critical Evaluation "Barack Obama is as fine a writer as they come. It is not merely that this book avoids being ponderous, as might be expected, even forgiven, of a hefty memoir, but that it is nearly always pleasurable to read, sentence by sentence, the prose gorgeous in places, the detail granular and vivid. From Southeast Asia to a forgotten school in South Carolina, he evokes the sense of place with a light but sure hand.” Ngozi Adichie, Chimamanda, "Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on Barack Obama’s ‘A Promised Land’," The New York [...]
To the New Year BY W. S. MERWIN With what stillness at last you appear in the valley your first sunlight reaching down to touch the tips of a few high leaves that do not stir as though they had not noticed and did not know you at all then the voice of a dove calls from far away in itself to the hush of the morning so this is the sound of you here and now whether or not anyone hears it this is where we have come with our age our knowledge such as it is and our hopes such [...]
Winter in the Rockies Chelsea Dingman Is this heaven? Hidden highways. An avalanche. Nothing around for miles to hear tires leave the road. The mountains bow, back-lit by white skies. I walk & wonder if I walk for any reason except to walk. My father, drenched in drifting snow, was left here. Yet I can’t say I’m closer to the truth about loss than I was as a child when the world I saw was a world that doesn’t ache to be anything else. It’s funny how easy it is to forget the sound of water in winter. I lay down on [...]
Mosaic BY LINDA PASTAN 1. THE SACRIFICE On this tile the knife like a sickle-moon hangs in the painted air as if it had learned a dance of its own, the way the boy has among the vivid breakable flowers, the way Abraham has among the boulders, his two feet heavy as stones. 2. NEAR SINAI God's hand here is the size of a tiny cloud, and the wordless tablets he holds out curve like the temple doors. Moses, reaching up must see on their empty surface laws chiseled in his mind by the persistent wind of the desert, by wind in [...]
Book of the Month: The Library Book by Susan Orlean (2018) Critical Evaluation "The most cinematic thing that’s ever occurred inside the Los Angeles Central Library appears to be this one fire, and even the fire wasn’t all that cinematic, as fires go. Afterward, the most compelling related dramas were the various efforts to dry the books. Really, no one should search this material for a movie. But — and here’s both the mystery and the charm of Susan Orlean — it has made for a lovely book. Or rather, two books. The first is about the fire itself — which [...]
Around Us Marvin Bell We need some pines to assuage the darkness when it blankets the mind, we need a silvery stream that banks as smoothly as a plane's wing, and a worn bed of needles to pad the rumble that fills the mind, and a blur or two of a wild thing that sees and is not seen. We need these things between appointments, after work, and, if we keep them, then someone someday, lying down after a walk and supper, with the fire hole wet down, the whole night sky set at a particular time, without numbers or hours, [...]
Marshlands Emily Pauline Johnson A thin wet sky, that yellows at the rim, And meets with sun-lost lip the marsh’s brim. The pools low lying, dank with moss and mould, Glint through their mildews like large cups of gold Among the wild rice in the still lagoon, In monotone the lizard shrills his tune. The wild goose, homing, seeks a sheltering, Where rushes grow, and oozing lichens cling. Late cranes with heavy wing, and lazy flight, Sail up the silence with the nearing night. And like a spirit, swathed in some soft veil, Steals twilight and its shadows o’er the swale. [...]
