They tell us we are not reading much anymore, at least not in the longform. We turn to our phones and computers to read and listen to the latest news and commentary. Each of us is in the driver’s seat to select the best that is thought and said, as Matthew Arnold once helpfully encouraged. I’m guilty. I start my day waking up in the constantly renewing information and misinformation from The Free Press, daily from The Plough Daily Dig, Substack, Poems Ancient and Modern, Christian Art, the digital NY Times and WSJ, and on and on. All of this in shortform to which we are rapidly complying.

Let’s take a little different angle today. How about if we turn to a few good poets? Let me explain. I am trying to see things more clearly these days. I feel enveloped by fog, too many things to handle, too much uncertainty, too much anxiety all around. Maybe these poets can help me notice the little things. Maybe that’s the way to cut through some of this fog. Maybe this is part of God’s plan from the beginning.  

Over the last three weeks or so I’ve been looking out the window of my study onto this magnificent yellow tree. Spring is here, it seems to say. New life has arrived. I can’t imagine anything more yellow. More beautiful. It was breathtaking.

My daily poetry app, Poems Ancient and Modern, dropped a poem in my lap one morning last week. I’ve read this poem many times before, even memorized it at one point. The poem is The Lake Isle of Innisfree, written by William Butler Yeats, in 1888. One of the good things about reading poems all your life is that you get to reread them. This poem speaks to something I feel quite urgently right now: In our turbulent world, where can I find peace? And I thought, just maybe the poets can be helpful.