Welcome to Sunday Poetry. If this is your first visit you can read about the purpose and inspiration of my Sunday poetry blogs here.

My heart is broken for the twenty-seven children and teachers who were killed on Friday.  Some things in life are so tragic and incomprehensible there aren’t enough words to convey our shock and sadness.  I’m grateful to our poets, who find ways to express, for all of us, the essence of our humanity.

This poem, The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry, is what I wish for those who are in pain from such a terrible loss.

Remember, we read poetry together here for the pure pleasure of the experience. There are no quizzes, no right ways to read or contemplate the poem we share. Absolutely no dissecting allowed. Just come along for the “read.” What line, word or thought will you carry with you this week? If you’d like to tell us where the poem took you? We’ll listen.

Remember, too, there is a special giveaway in progress for those who comment on any Sunday Poetry blog before year’s end.  The prize is an autographed copy of Billy Collins’s Horoscopes for the Dead. See the details here. I’ve carried this precious autographed book from New York to Virginia, on to North Carolina, and now to Florida. It’s waiting for someone to claim it.

Will it be you?