Poetry
Poetry by Emily Isaacson is available at House of James, Hemmingway's, and other fine bookstores, Potter's House Press, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online bookstores.
For more on the poetry of Emily Isaacson, or to order directly visit our booksite: Potter's Press
Buy The Books
The Blossom Jar, Prose-poetry by Emily Isaacson
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City of Roses, a novel by Emily Isaacson
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A Familiar Shore
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Hours From A Convent
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Snowflake Princess
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House of Rain
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Ignatia
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Quotes
Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.
–Helen Keller
Time stays only long enough for those who use it.
–Leonardo da Vinci
And all the loveliest things there be/Come simply, so it seems to me.
–Edna St. Vincent Millay
In solitude the mind gains strength and learns to lean upon itself.
–Laurence Sterne
It is while you are patiently toiling at the little tasks of life that the meaning and shape of the great whole dawn upon you.
–Philip Brooks
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods/ There is a rapture on the lonely shore,/ There is society where none intrudes,/By the deep sea, and music in its roar.
–Lord Byron
Home is not where you live, but where they understand you.
–Christian Morgenstern
The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unecessary so that the necessary may speak.
--Hans Hofmann
With an eye made quiet by the power/ Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,/ We see into the life of things.
–William Wordsworth
A wise man will desire no more than he can get justly, use soberly, distribute cheerfully, and leave contentedly.
–-Benjamin Franklin
The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.
–Ralph Waldo Emerson
Live simply that others may simply live.
–Mohandas Gandhi
Music
Contact Us
The Wild Lily Institute
P.O. Box 3366
Mission, B.C.
V2V 4J5 Canada
1.888.399.3210
New poetry by Isaacson
Pisces Austrinus
I.
The yellow tolerance of lemons
growing in the raw Californian heat;
sheltered in the branches,
accepting and informing the sunlight
to stay and ripen
what once was young
into a wrinkled smile.
Dot dot Botticelli—the artwork of the masters
are the lemon half-moons
glowing and drowning in my glass,
tart and spring water-fresh:
my mouth is a canvas
of tastes and textures,
my whipped meringue
is the steady hand of white acrylic.
Puppis
I.
A green-eyed patience stares at
the almost-winter hazelnut trees,
the reticent tap beneath the spring;
today comes swiftly as the wind,
yesterday parts as the autumn-parched leaves,
tomorrow will fulfillment bring,
a chance tryst beneath the sister pines,
where mother moon shines merrily
through the drought of clouds,
too long without the linen rain—
flying, a low angel over the fields.
The shadow world shifts
its black and white ellipsis
into beaded wild grasses, burrs
in the change of time and blackberry blossoms.
Pyxis
I.
The joy of blue glass,
the vase, the bowl,
tinted and shaded as the sky,
with sister stars, the anise
and cardamom pods,
in constellations of pungent sweetness.
Tomato seeds,
ready to grow
in the dialect of soil,
and the potter’s directives
a warm hum of life-giving words
enameled over the silence
of neglect and starvation.
A pail of well water,
transparent and authentic.
Reticulum
I.
The goodness of a purple crinoline
as a ballet measure, to the barre with graceful limbs,
ready to debate the radiance, as a dark fruit
takes in the sun, sanguine as a dancer in leotard:
an equitable fit for a mysterious woman
with a vivacious postmodern congruity
as her mandate, seeking a revered vision,
a courage angel standing, arms out, insensible—
the bluntness a prohibition, and aureole
refusing the dross with eagle-eyes.
She is desirous, faintly yearning, learning to dance.
What permanence she dreaded
became the equanimity of composure.
Singing as we are sung to, loving as we are being loved,
with each abating faculty, unfettered.
Emily Isaacson, A Familiar Shore
_____________________________________
The Wildings
Classic
Foliage and the violet orchards
flowered and picked,
the folded and faded variety:
preserving traditions
with old jam.
Fields of fruit,
from Kent to Cambridge, vigor—
a strawberry flavor, the most
English of all.
Linen Press
The pots, upside down
and brown
holding earth, as we
dry the moss and lichen,
a decorative accent.
The hot water
on the pot-bellied stove,
a twenty-minute endeavor:
the basins, for snow-pure
sheets, socks, and scarves
hanging in the breeze.
Inglenook
Castlehaven,
an engraved charcoal flight,
the ancient Romans
on the isle of wings:
the pigeonholes, laced
antique boots, leather-brown,
and monarchs converging
on wild asparagus.
The tiny white flowers
in a mother’s apron:
freesia an ointment
from the 17th century onwards,
chimneys, a soot-tainted
handkerchief, and
a wreath over the door knocker.
Provencale
Pots and pans
in a quiet space,
small head, with one
moment’s wish;
cloth towels to wipe away
smears, and a wild goose lake
where the blue stains.
Hand mirrors,
silver, ivory, and ebony,
with chaste and embossed
flowers: wreaths, ribbons, and bows;
in the hedge, small wildings
heckling the wrens.
The Gardener
The water can,
silver-blue and rain
falling into hay barrels;
the clouds, a thick lining
against Portugal’s clavier.
An indent per daffodil,
and weather-worn ladder
for the garden shed,
white-washed
under a tangle.
Blackbirds, blossoms,
redwings, and fieldfares
join in after the frost.
Gloucestershire
Apples, no two alike,
from old cores,
grown among the verges.
Hidden deep in the woodland,
its seeds a jumble
for foxes, pies, and cider,
the crab apple dons its apron.
From pollen to blossom,
field to field:
woodpeckers, nuthatches,
and thrush nesting mistletoe
in the old apple wood.
Alabaster
Pondering through the boughs,
barrier to wind or stock,
the wildings
in the Welsh uplands,
pink with blossoms:
weighted down with
small green spheres,
the autumn, a hidden tryst
with light:
ripening a tune.
One apple for three thorns,
pips, as hedgerow root stock,
and graft a twig
from morn to moon.
Emily Isaacson, The Fleur-de-lis