The start of summer seems like a good time to indulge in a little daydreaming. Enjoy this brief poem by Jeanette Hardage on the topic. (This one is also found in Faith and Other Matters). Daydream Grass-backed I lietraveling vapor trailsfirst-class mind-wand’ringunravels mingled memories Free …
Read MoreGuilty Pleasure
Steeped in the Brethren religious tradition, Jeanette Hardage’s family had a decidedly conservative approach to the American cultural practices around them. One of my favorite poems from her Faith and Other Matters anthology is one in which she rebels just a bit against her church …
Read MoreBeautiful Surrender
Jeanette Hardage anthropomorphizes nature in the poem below with its imagery of fog “conquering” a hill. As a frequent resident of coastal California, she had many opportunities to witness this phenomenon. She first wrote this in 1961, probably as a class assignment. She reworked it …
Read MoreMore Delights of Spring
The Hardages’ home in South Carolina backed up to a swamp which afforded them many hours of quiet enjoyment of nature. This photo by Jeanette Hardage captured at least two of the creatures that regularly visited that area, alligators and egrets. In the piece below, …
Read MoreSpring Rebirth
As spring bursts forth again, enjoy Jeanette Hardage’s poem below, originally entitled “April 10: For Doug,” which celebrates the growth, beauty, and hope of the season. She penned this sonnet in honor of her younger brother Doug, pictured here with a teenaged Jeanette along with …
Read MoreAn Hour and Twenty Bucks
In an undated journal entry, Jeanette Hardage shared the experience of visiting a “third hand” bookstore in Dartmouth, UK. It was located in a repurposed old stone church called St. Barnabas and it was characterized by the kind of haphazard organization that often seems to …
Read MoreIn Praise of Cats
The Hardages were cat people. They spent many an hour stroking, feeding, grooming, and talking to cats, not to mention cleaning up their messes, looking for lost ones, and taking injured ones to the vet. Jeanette Hardage loved T.S. Elliot’s The Naming of Cats, and …
Read MoreAutumn Leaves
In a Thanksgiving 2000 letter to family and friends, Jeanette Hardage first shared the poem below evoking the glory of autumn. She followed it with lines from a hymn by Matthias Claudius, “We Plow the Fields and Scatter,” which celebrates the changing seasons as good …
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